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2D Stability Selection: Design Jittering for Doubly Stable Feature Selection

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We study feature selection in high-dimensional regression under two distinct sources of instability: sampling variability and measurement error in the design matrix. Stability Selection addresses the former through sub-sampling and aggregation, but does not explicitly stress-test robustness to noisy predictors. We introduce doubly stable feature selection, a perturb-and-aggregate framework that targets features whose inclusion is stable both across randomization and across increasing levels of design noise. The method injects controlled additive noise into the design matrix, fits a fixed base selector such as the Lasso on the perturbed data, and aggregates selection frequencies. Sweeping over a grid of noise levels yields a stability path that summarizes robustness to measurement error while using the full sample size and isolating the effect of design perturbations. On the theory side, we show that classical model-selection conditions are preserved under sufficiently small perturbations, with a high-probability extension for Gaussian noise. Empirically, experiments on synthetic and real datasets show improved robustness compared with Stability Selection and standard base selectors.


Smart Ensemble Learning Framework for Predicting Groundwater Heavy Metal Pollution

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Groundwater in the Densu Basin is increasingly threatened by heavy metal contamination, but conventional methods fail to capture the statistical complexity and spatial heterogeneity of pollution indicators. A key challenge is modelling the Heavy Metal Pollution Index (HPI), which is typically skewed and affected by correlated contaminants, leading to biased predictions without transformation. This study develops a predictive framework integrating response transformations with nested cross-validated ensemble machine learning. Three transformations (raw, log, and Gaussian copula) were applied to HPI and evaluated across six learners: support vector regression (SVM), $k$-nearest neighbours (k-NN), CART, Elastic Net, kernel ridge regression, and a stacked Lasso ensemble. Raw-scale models produced deceptively high fits (Elastic Net and stacked ensemble $R^2 \approx 1.0$), suggesting over-optimism. The log transformation stabilised variance (SVM: $R^2 = 0.93$, RMSE $= 0.18$; k-NN: $R^2 = 0.92$, RMSE $= 0.20$). The Gaussian copula gave the most reliable results: stacked ensemble $R^2 = 0.96$ (RMSE $= 0.19$), with other learners maintaining high accuracy. Copula-based models improved residuals and produced spatially plausible maps. DBSCAN clustering revealed Fe and Mn as primary HPI contributors, consistent with regional hydrogeochemistry. Limitations include reliance on random (not spatial) cross-validation and basin-specific scope. Future work should explore spatial validation and other geological settings. Overall, distribution-aware ensembles with clustering diagnostics offer robust, interpretable assessments of groundwater contamination.


New Bounds for Hyperparameter Tuning of Regression Problems Across Instances

Neural Information Processing Systems

The task of tuning regularization coefficients in regularized regression models with provable guarantees across problem instances still poses a significant challenge in the literature. This paper investigates the sample complexity of tuning regularization parameters in linear and logistic regressions under โ„“1 and โ„“2-constraints in the data-driven setting. For the linear regression problem, by more carefully exploiting the structure of the dual function class, we provide a new upper bound for the pseudo-dimension of the validation loss function class, which significantly improves the best-known results on the problem. Remarkably, we also instantiate the first matching lower bound, proving our results are tight. For tuning the regularization parameters of logistic regression, we introduce a new approach to studying the learning guarantee via an approximation of the validation loss function class. We examine the pseudo-dimension of the approximation class and construct a uniform error bound between the validation loss function class and its approximation, which allows us to instantiate the first learning guarantee for the problem of tuning logistic regression regularization coefficients.


Learning SMaLL Predictors

Neural Information Processing Systems

We introduce a new framework for learning in severely resource-constrained settings. Our technique delicately amalgamates the representational richness of multiple linear predictors with the sparsity of Boolean relaxations, and thereby yields classifiers that are compact, interpretable, and accurate. We provide a rigorous formalism of the learning problem, and establish fast convergence of the ensuing algorithm via relaxation to a minimax saddle point objective.