Channel (broadcasting)

Mathematics

Mathematical optimization

Piecewise

Estimator

Engineering

Bounded function

Rate of convergence

Isotonic regression

Combinatorics

Minimax estimator

Minimum-variance unbiased estimator

Minimax

Applied mathematics

Statistics

Mathematical analysis

Electrical engineering

The Annals of Statistics

We study the least squares regression function estimator over the class of real-valued functions on $[0,1]^{d}$ that are increasing in each coordinate. For uniformly bounded signals and with a fixed, cubic lattice design, we establish that the estimator achieves the minimax rate of order $n^{-\min\{2/(d+2),1/d\}}$ in the empirical $L_{2}$ loss, up to polylogarithmic factors. Further, we prove a sharp oracle inequality, which reveals in particular that when the true regression function is piecewise constant on $k$ hyperrectangles, the least squares estimator enjoys a faster, adaptive rate of convergence of $(k/n)^{\min(1,2/d)}$, again up to polylogarithmic factors. Previous results are confined to the case $d\leq2$. Finally, we establish corresponding bounds (which are new even in the case $d=2$) in the more challenging random design setting. There are two surprising features of these results: first, they demonstrate that it is possible for a global empirical risk minimisation procedure to be rate optimal up t...

Isotonic regression in general dimensions