Approximate inverse of a Gram matrix Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-05
A matrix is an -approximate inverse of a Gram matrix in entrywise maximum norm whenThis turns the bias remainder of a Debiased Lasso into a product of and the coefficient error.
Debiased-Lasso asymptotic normality 2026-09-24
Under sparsity, compatibility, and inverse-Gram estimation conditions, the standardized coordinatewise error of the Debiased Lasso converges in distribution to a standard normal distribution.
Debiased-Lasso remainder bound 2026-10-05
Let and use Nodewise Lasso with and nonzero design columns. Form with entry equal to one and other entries , and put row of equal to . The nodewise-Lasso residual identity and the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions show that the diagonal of equals one and its row- off-diagonal entries have magnitude at most . For the Debiased Lasso,The displayed bound follows row by row from Holder inequality. If the noise is conditionally multivariate normal with covariance , and the nodewise fits and tuning parameters depend only on , the first term is conditionally normal with covariance .
Gaussian identity design for debiased Lasso 2026-10-05
In the normal linear model, assume is independent of . Independent rows of with multivariate normal distribution give a simple random design for Debiased Lasso. Let , and , with fixed positive noise scale. Choose the Lasso penalty and all Nodewise Lasso penalties as sufficiently large constant multiples of , including the noise scale in the former. Uniform sample cross-correlations are bounded by this scale, so zero is the nodewise solution with probability tending to one. Column squared norms divided by converge uniformly to one. To check the Compatibility condition for the Lasso directly, put and . On the Lasso cone condition, , and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality givesFor , entrywise concentration of a Gaussian Gram matrix gives with probability tending to one for sufficiently large fixed . The stated sparsity condition implies on this event, so one can take eventually. The conditional Gaussian tail bound for the noise score and the Basic inequality for the Lasso then give with probability tending to one. Consequently the debiased-Lasso remainder bound is at most with probability tending to one, for a fixed constant . These assumptions allow both and to grow, for example , .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 205 6 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Put . The Debiased Lasso correction isFor the Nodewise Lasso, let . Its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions areso at a nonzero coefficient and at a zero coefficient. Multiplying by gives the nodewise-Lasso residual identityWe require nonzero design columns, a necessary qualification missing from the unrestricted printed formulation. Because , would force both and , and hence . Thus nonzero columns suffice for even when or the full Gram matrix is singular. A zero column instead gives and its coefficient is unidentifiable from ; the proposed normalization and confidence interval do not exist there.
For each , define by and . Set row of to . Since ,This row construction is the nodewise normalization used by van de Geer and coauthors. The matrix need not be symmetric or be an actual inverse.
Substitute the linear model into the correction. The exact decomposition isIn the fixed-design normal linear model, or with and nodewise estimates and tuning chosen from alone, a linear transformation of a multivariate normal distribution gives . Marginal normality of without this conditional assumption would not suffice for a response-dependent random design. No independence between and is asserted. The diagonal cancellation and the Holder inequality give the debiased-Lasso remainder bound
For a coordinate variance, , whenceWriting for the corresponding standard normal quantile, an approximate confidence interval isEquivalently its half-width is . We assume and . For asymptotic coverage, the standardized remainder must have convergence in probability to zero and the coordinate variance must be nondegenerate. Exact conditional normality of alone does not give finite-sample exact coverage for .
One sufficient random-design regime is the Gaussian identity design for debiased Lasso: take independent rows , independently of , fixed , , , andChoose and all for sufficiently large fixed . Here is why this regime has the requested remainder bound. Uniformly over columns, their squared norms divided by tend to one, while all off-diagonal sample cross-correlations have magnitude at most a constant times with probability tending to one. Taking larger makes the zero vector satisfy all nodewise Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions strictly, so for every on that event, and eventually. This also gives uniformly.
In this regime, the entrywise entrywise concentration of a Gaussian Gram matrix and Lasso cone condition argument in Gaussian identity design for debiased Lasso gives a Compatibility condition for the Lasso bounded away from zero with probability tending to one. Together with the noise-score event and the Basic inequality for the Lasso, this yields, for a fixed ,For example, the cone inequality and compatibility bound give on their joint event. Therefore, with a fixed ,The stated sparsity condition makes this remainder vanish and supplies the preceding confidence-interval requirement. Both dimensions may grow: and satisfy these assumptions. The concentration and Gaussian-design compatibility results are sufficient standard conditions here; the question does not require their proofs. The displayed rate is a high-probability fixed-constant bound, rather than only a claim of boundedness in probability.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 205 6 b Solution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
Put . Direct substitution of into the Debiased Lasso givesConditionally on the deterministic design,The assumed approximate inverse of a Gram matrix property and Holder inequality implyThus .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 218 5 e Solution 2026-09-28
Choose on a grid by K-fold cross-validation, comparing the same held-out prediction loss and optionally applying the one-standard-error rule for a simpler model. A genuinely untouched test set can then estimate final prediction error.
Ordinary model-based intervals after selecting nonzero coefficients ignore selection and are generally invalid. Valid approaches include Debiased Lasso or a selective-inference procedure under its assumptions, sample splitting followed by an unpenalized refit and inference on the independent half, or a bootstrap that repeats both tuning and fitting and is interpreted with care near the nonsmooth zero threshold.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 205 4 b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
One standard construction uses the Debiased Lasso. Starting from the Square-root Lasso estimate , estimate a vector that approximately inverts the th column of the empirical Gram matrix , for example by a Nodewise Lasso. Defineand estimate by . The approximate two-sided level- test rejects whenwhere is a standard normal quantile.
Sufficient high-dimensional conditions include a Compatibility condition for the Lasso bounded away from zero, , , andtogether with the corresponding sparsity and consistency conditions for the nodewise inverse-Gram estimate. Under these assumptions the Debiased-Lasso asymptotic normality makes the rejection probability under tend to .