BACKGROUND LASSO is a penalized regression method that facilitates model fitting in situations where there are as many, or even more explanatory variables than observations, and only a few variables are relevant in explaining the data. We focus on the Bayesian version of LASSO and consider four problems that need special attention: (i) controlling false positives, (ii) multiple comparisons, (ii...

The wealth of phylogenetic information accumulated over many decades of biological research, coupled with recent technological advances in molecular sequence generation, presents significant opportunities for researchers to investigate relationships across and within the kingdoms of life. However, to make best use of this data wealth, several problems must first be overcome. One key problem is ...

We consider the problem of estimating a sparse linear regression vector β∗ under a gaussian noise model, for the purpose of both prediction and model selection. We assume that prior knowledge is available on the sparsity pattern, namely the set of variables is partitioned into prescribed groups, only few of which are relevant in the estimation process. This group sparsity assumption suggests us...

In the sparse linear regression setting, we consider testing the significance of the predictor variable that enters the current lasso model, in the sequence of models visited along the lasso solution path. We propose a simple test statistic based on lasso fitted values, called the covariance test statistic, and show that when the true model is linear, this statistic has an Exp(1) asymptotic dis...

Sparse linear inverse problems appear in a variety of settings, but often the noise contaminating observations cannot accurately be described as bounded by or arising from a Gaussian distribution. Poisson observations in particular are a characteristic feature of several real-world applications. Previous work on sparse Poisson inverse problems encountered several limiting technical hurdles. Thi...

We consider “one-at-a-time” coordinate-wise descent algorithms for a class of convex optimization problems. An algorithm of this kind has been proposed for the L1-penalized regression (lasso) in the lterature, but it seems to have been largely ignored. Indeed, it seems that coordinate-wise algorithms are not often used in convex optimization. We show that this algorithm is very competitive with...

Recently, to solve large-scale lasso and group lasso problems, screening rules have been developed, the goal of which is to reduce the problem size by efficiently discarding zero coefficients using simple rules independently of the others. However, screening for overlapping group lasso remains an open challenge because the overlaps between groups make it infeasible to test each group independen...

The Lasso estimate for linear regression parameters can be interpreted as a Bayesian posterior mode estimate when the priors on the regression parameters are independent double-exponential (Laplace) distributions. This posterior can also be accessed through a Gibbs sampler using conjugate normal priors for the regression parameters, with independent exponential hyperpriors on their variances. T...