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Variable selection in convex nonparametric least squares via structured Lasso: An application to the Swedish electricity distribution networks

Zhiqiang Liao

arXiv 3 Sep 2024 · Statistics — Methodology

arXiv:2409.01911 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We study the problem of variable selection in convex nonparametric least squares (CNLS). Whereas the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) is a popular technique for least squares, its variable selection performance is unknown in CNLS problems. In this work, we investigate the performance of the Lasso estimator and find out it is usually unable to select variables efficiently. Exploiting the unique structure of the subgradients in CNLS, we develop a structured Lasso method by combining $\ell_1$-norm and $\ell_{\infty}$-norm. The relaxed version of the structured Lasso is proposed for achieving model sparsity and predictive performance simultaneously, where we can control the two effects--variable selection and model shrinkage--using separate tuning parameters. A Monte Carlo study is implemented to verify the finite sample performance of the proposed approaches. We also use real data from Swedish electricity distribution networks to illustrate the effects of the proposed variable selection techniques. The results from the simulation and application confirm that the proposed structured Lasso performs favorably, generally leading to sparser and more accurate predictive models, relative to the conventional Lasso methods in the literature.

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37
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80
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37
distinct cited
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11,738
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Duras, T., Javed, F., Mnsson, K., Sjölander, P., & Söderberg, M (2023) Using machine learning to select variables in data envelopment analysis: Simulations and application using electricity distribut…1.00073100%
2Bertsimas, D., & Mundru, N (2021) Sparse convex regression1.00063100%
3Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Tibshirani, R (2020) Best subset, forward stepwise or lasso? Analysis and recommendations based on extensive comparisons1.00053100%
4Dai, S (2023) Variable selection in convex quantile regression: L$_1$-norm or L$_0$-norm regularization?0.92843100%
5Lee, C. Y., & Cai, J. Y (2020) LASSO variable selection in data envelopment analysis with small datasets0.92843100%
6Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate (2021) Effektiviseringskrav för elnätsföretag - förslag på utveckling av metodik0.87472100%
7Tibshirani, R (1996) Regression shrinkage and selection via the lasso0.84333100%
8Meinshausen, N (2007) Relaxed lasso0.81142100%
9Xu, M., Chen, M., & Lafferty, J (2016) Faithful variable screening for high-dimensional convex regression0.73732100%
10Bertsimas, D., King, A., & Mazumder, R (2016) Best subset selection via a modern optimization lens0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 37 scored citations.