Date: 2014-11-21

Time: 15:30-16:30

Location: BURN 1205

Abstract:

Many statistical estimators are based on solving nonconvex programs. Although the practical performance of such methods is often excellent, the associated theory is frequently incomplete, due to the potential gaps between global and local optima. In this talk, we present theoretical results that apply to all local optima of various regularized M-estimators, where both loss and penalty functions are allowed to be nonconvex. Our theory covers a broad class of nonconvex objective functions, including corrected versions of the Lasso for error-in-variables linear models; regression in generalized linear models using nonconvex regularizers such as SCAD and MCP; and graph and inverse covariance matrix estimation. Under suitable regularity conditions, our theory guarantees that any local optimum of the composite objective function lies within statistical precision of the true parameter vector. This result closes the gap between theory and practice for these methods.

Speaker

Martin J. Wainwright is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the 2014 winner of the prestigious COPSS Presidents’ Award.