Katsevich Eugene, Sabatti Chiara
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 390 SERRA MALL, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305,
Ann Appl Stat. 2019 Mar;13(1):1-33. doi: 10.1214/18-AOAS1185. Epub 2019 Apr 10.
We tackle the problem of selecting from among a large number of variables those that are "important" for an outcome. We consider situations where groups of variables are also of interest. For example, each variable might be a genetic polymorphism, and we might want to study how a trait depends on variability in genes, segments of DNA that typically contain multiple such polymorphisms. In this context, to discover that a variable is relevant for the outcome implies discovering that the larger entity it represents is also important. To guarantee meaningful results with high chance of replicability, we suggest controlling the rate of false discoveries for findings at the level of individual variables and at the level of groups. Building on the knockoff construction of Barber and Candès [ (2015) 2055-2085] and the multilayer testing framework of Barber and Ramdas [ (2017) 1247-1268], we introduce the multilayer knockoff filter (MKF). We prove that MKF simultaneously controls the FDR at each resolution and use simulations to show that it incurs little power loss compared to methods that provide guarantees only for the discoveries of individual variables. We apply MKF to analyze a genetic dataset and find that it successfully reduces the number of false gene discoveries without a significant reduction in power.
我们要解决的问题是,从大量变量中挑选出对某个结果“重要”的变量。我们考虑变量组也很重要的情况。例如,每个变量可能是一种基因多态性,我们可能想研究一个性状如何依赖于基因(通常包含多个此类多态性的DNA片段)的变异性。在这种情况下,发现一个变量与结果相关意味着发现它所代表的更大实体也很重要。为了确保结果有意义且具有高可重复性,我们建议在单个变量层面和变量组层面控制错误发现率。基于Barber和Candès [(2015)2055 - 2085]的仿冒品构造以及Barber和Ramdas [(2017)1247 - 1268]的多层测试框架,我们引入了多层仿冒品过滤器(MKF)。我们证明MKF在每个分辨率下都能同时控制错误发现率(FDR),并通过模拟表明,与仅为单个变量发现提供保证的方法相比,它几乎不会导致功率损失。我们应用MKF分析一个基因数据集,发现它成功减少了错误基因发现的数量,且功率没有显著降低。