We consider the class of all multiple testing methods controlling tail probabilities of the false discovery proportion, either for one random set or simultaneously for many such sets. This class... Show moreWe consider the class of all multiple testing methods controlling tail probabilities of the false discovery proportion, either for one random set or simultaneously for many such sets. This class encompasses methods controlling familywise error rate, generalized familywise error rate, false discovery exceedance, joint error rate, simultaneous control of all false discovery proportions, and others, as well as gene set testing in genomics and cluster inference in neuroimaging. We show that all such methods are either equivalent to a closed testing procedure, or are uniformly improved by one. Moreover, we show that a closed testing method is admissible if and only if all its local tests are admissible. This implies that, when designing methods, it is sufficient to restrict attention to closed testing. We demonstrate the practical usefulness of this design principle by obtaining more informative inferences from the method of higher criticism, and by constructing a uniform improvement of a recently proposed method. Show less
Robins, J.M.; Li, L.; Mukherjee, R.; Tchetgen, E.T.; Vaart, A.W. van der 2017
In the setting of nonparametric multivariate regression with unknown error variance, we study asymptotic properties of a Bayesian method for estimating a regression function f and its mixed partial... Show moreIn the setting of nonparametric multivariate regression with unknown error variance, we study asymptotic properties of a Bayesian method for estimating a regression function f and its mixed partial derivatives. We use a random series of tensor product of B-splines with normal basis coefficients as a prior for f, and the error variance is either estimated using the empirical Bayes approach or is endowed with a suitable prior in a hierarchical Bayes approach. We establish pointwise, L2 and supremum norm posterior contraction rates for f and its mixed partial derivatives, and show that they coincide with the minimax rates. Our results cover even the anisotropic situation, where the true regression function may have different smoothness in different directions. Using the convergence bounds, we show that pointwise, L2 and supremum norm credible sets for f and its mixed partial derivatives have guaranteed frequentist coverage with optimal size. New results on tensor products of B-splines are also obtained in the course. Show less
