Xiao-Li Meng

A Multi-resolution Theory for Approximating Infinite-p-Zero-n: Transitional Inference, Individualized Predictions, and a World Without Bias-Variance Tradeoff

Abstract

Transitional inference is an empiricism concept, rooted and practiced in clinical medicine since ancient Greece. Knowledge and experiences gained from treating one entity (e.g., a disease or a group of patients) are applied to treat a related but distinctively different one (e.g., a similar disease or a new patient). This notion of “transition to the similar” renders individualized treatments an operational meaning, yet its theoretical foundation defies the familiar inductive inference framework. The uniqueness of entities is the result of potentially an infinite number of attributes (hence p=∞), which entails zero direct training sample size (i.e., n = 0) because genuine guinea pigs do not exist. However, the literature on wavelets and on sieve methods for nonparametric estimation suggests a principled approximation theory for transitional inference via a multi-resolution (MR) perspective, where we use the resolution level to index the degree of approximation to ultimate individuality. MR inference seeks a primary resolution indexing an indirect train- ing sample, which provides enough matched attributes to increase the relevance of the results to the target individuals and yet still accumulate sufficient indirect sample sizes for robust estimation. Theoretically, MR inference relies on an infinite-term ANOVA-type decomposition, providing an alternative way to model sparsity via the decay rate of the resolution bias as a function of the primary resolution level. Unexpectedly, this decomposition reveals a world without variance when the outcome is a deterministic function of potentially infinitely many predictors. In this deterministic world, the optimal resolution prefers over-fitting in the traditional sense when the resolution bias decays sufficiently rapidly. Furthermore, there can be many “descents” in the prediction error curve, when the contributions of predictors are inhomogeneous and the ordering of their importance does not align with the order of their inclusion in prediction. These findings may hint at a deterministic approximation theory for understanding the apparently over-fitting resistant phenomenon of some over-saturated models in machine learning.

About the speaker

Xiao-Li Meng, the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics, and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Data Science Review, is well known for his depth and breadth in research, his innovation and passion in pedagogy, his vision and effectiveness in administration, as well as for his engaging and entertaining style as a speaker and writer. Meng was named the best statistician under the age of 40 by COPSS (Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies) in 2001, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his more than 150 publications in at least a dozen theoretical and methodological areas, as well as in areas of pedagogy and professional development. He has delivered more than 400 research presentations and public speeches on these topics, and he is the author of “The XL-Files,” a thought-provoking and entertaining column in the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) Bulletin. His interests range from the theoretical foundations of statistical inferences (e.g., the interplay among Bayesian, Fiducial, and frequentist perspectives; frameworks for multi-source, multi-phase and multi- resolution inferences) to statistical methods and computation (e.g., posterior predictive p-value; EM algorithm; Markov chain Monte Carlo; bridge and path sampling) to applications in natural, social, and medical sciences and engineering (e.g., complex statistical modeling in astronomy and astrophysics, assessing disparity in mental health services, and quantifying statistical information in genetic studies). Meng received his BS in mathematics from Fudan University in 1982 and his PhD in statistics from Harvard in 1990. He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago from 1991 to 2001 before returning to Harvard, where he served as the Chair of the Department of Statistics (2004-2012) and the Dean of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2012-2017).