SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

June 9 to 11, 2011 International Workshop on Perspectives on High-dimensional Data Analysis Fields Institute, Toronto Jointly held as a satellite meeting with the 39th Annual Meeting of the
Organizing Committee S. Ejaz Ahmed (chair), University of Windsor Peter X. K. Song, University of Michigan Mu Zhu, University of Waterloo
Sponsored by

Overview

Many modern scientific investigations require the analysis of high dimensional data. Examples include genomic and proteomic data, spatial-temporal data, network data, and many others. Simultaneous variable selection and parameter estimation play a central role in such investigations. There is now an immense literature on variable selection, and penalized regression methods are becoming increasingly popular. Much new development has been published in recent years by leading statistical journals.

The application of linear regression models for high-dimensional data analysis is a challenging task. Regularization techniques, such as adaptive penalized least-squares, have attracted much attention in the literature. Penalized regression is a technique for mitigating difficulties arising from collinearity and high-dimensionality. This approach necessarily incurs an estimation bias, while reducing the variance of the estimator. A tuning parameter is needed to adjust the effect of the penalization so that a desirable balance between model parsimony and goodness-of-fit can be achieved. Different forms of penalty functions have been studied intensively over the last 10-15 years. Examples include the LASSO and its many variants (such as adaptive LASSO, group LASSO, relaxed LASSO, and so on), the SCAD, the Dantzig selector, and the elastic net, to name just a few. More recently, some of these penalization/regularization techniques have been extended to deal with the estimation of large covariance matrices, and the analysis of complex dependence structures such as networks and graphs.

The purpose of this workshop is to stimulate research in an informal setting, and to foster the interaction of researchers in the area of high-dimensional data analysis. It will provide a venue for participants to meet leading researches of this field in an intimate setting, providing maximal chance for interaction and discussion. The objectives include:

(1) to highlight and expand the breadth of existing methods in high-dimensional data analysis and their potential for the advance of both mathematical and statistical sciences;
(2) to identify important directions for future research in the theory of regularization methods, in algorithmic development, and in methodology for different application areas;
(3) to facilitate collaboration between theoretical and subject-area researchers; and
(4) to provide opportunities for highly qualified personnel to meet and interact with leading researchers from countries around the world.

The workshop is being jointly held as a satellite meeting ahead of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers (speaker abstracts)

Rudy Beran, University of California-Davis
Jiahua Chen, University of British Columbia
Xihong Lin, Harvard University

Confirmed Invited Speakers (speaker abstracts)

Pierre Alquier, Université Paris 7
Shojaeddin Chenouri, University of Waterloo
Kjell Doksum, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yang Feng, Columbia University
D. A. S. Fraser, University of Toronto
Xin Gao, York University
Xiaoli Gao, Oakland University,
Yulia Gel, University of Waterloo
Jiashun Jin, Carnegie Mellon University
Timothy D. Johnson, University of Michigan
Abbas Khalili, McGill University
Peter Kim, University of Guelph
Samuel Kou, Harvard University
Hua Liang, University of Rochester
Yufeng Liu, North Carolina University
Jinchi Lv, University of Southern California
Bin Nan, University of Michigan
Annie Qu , University of Illinois UC
Sunil Rao, University of Miami
Enayet Raheem, Windsor Essex County Health Unit
Xiaotong Shen, University of Minnesota
Christopher G. Small, University of Waterloo
Hao Helen Zhang, North Carolina State University
Hongtu Zhu, University of North Carolina

Poster Session (poster abstracts)

S. Ejaz Ahmed and Saber Fallahpour, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Windsor
Billy Chang, (Biostatistics), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Abdulkadir Hussein, Ejaz Ahmed and Marwan Al-Momani, U of Windsor
Azadeh Shohoudi, McGill
Xin Tong, Princeton University
Chen Xu (Dept.of Stat, UBC), Song Cai (Dept.of Stat, UBC)

Poster Session
Please email your abstract to S. Ejaz Ahmed, Program Chair <seahme<at>uwindsor.ca> by May 15, 2011 for the acceptance.

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Application for Travel Support for Students
Travel support (up to $400) will be provided for 10 graduate students. Deadline to apply was May 1, 2011

Schedule ( speaker abstracts)

Thursday June 09
08:15 - 08:45	Registration and Coffee
08:45 - 09:00	Welcome
09:00 - 10:00	Plenary talk: Session Chair Ejaz Ahmed Jiahua Chen, University of British Columbia Advances in EM-test for Finite Mixture Models
10:00 - 10:30	Break
10:30 - 12:00	Invited talks: Session Chair Mu Zhu D.A.S. Fraser, University of Toronto     High-Dimensional: The Barrier and Bayes and Bias Samuel Kou, Harvard University      Multi-resolution inference of stochastic models from partially observed data Jiashun Jin, Carnegie Mellon University      UPS delivers optimal phase diagram in high dimensional variable selection
12:00 - 13:15	Lunch at Fields
13:15 - 15:15	Invited talks: Session Chair Abbas Khalili Yang Feng, Columbia University     Loss Adaptive Modified Penalty in Variable Selection Jinchi Lv, University of Southern California     Non-Concave Penalized Likelihood with NP-Dimensionality Pierre Alquier, Université Paris 7     Bayesian estimators in high dimension: PAC bounds and Monte Carlo methods Yulia Gel, University of Waterloo     Banded regularization of autocovariance matrices in application to parameter estimation and forecasting of time series
15:15 - 15:45	Break
15:45 - 17:45	Invited talks: Session Chair Shoja Chenouri Christopher G. Small, University of Waterloo     Multivariate analysis of data in curved shape spaces Peter Kim, University of Guelph     Testing Quantum States for Purity Timothy D. Johnson, University of Michigan     Computational Speedup in Spatial Bayesian Image Modeling via GPU Computing Hongtu Zhu, University of North Carolina     Smoothing Imaging Data in Population Studies (slides)
17:45 - 19:00	Reception at Fields - cash bar & poster session
Friday June 10
08:30 - 09:00	Coffee
09:00 - 10:00	Plenary talk: Session Chair Peter Song Xihong Lin, Harvard University Hypothesis testing and variable selection for Studying Rare Variants in Sequencing Association Studies
10:00 - 10:30	Break
10:30 - 12:00	Invited talks: Session Chair Sijian Wang Xiaotong Shen, University of Minnesota     On simultaneous supervised clustering and feature selection Hao Helen Zhang, North Carolina State University     On Sparse Estimation for Semiparametric Linear Transformation Models Yufeng Liu, North Carolina University     Automatic Structure Selection for Partially Linear Models
12:00 - 13:15	Lunch at Fields
13:15 - 15:15	Invited talks: Session Chair Yang Feng Hua Liang, University of Rochester     Profiled Forward Regression for Ultrahigh Dimensional Variable Screening in Semiparametric Partially Linear Models Annie Qu , University of Illinois UC     Conditional Inference Functions for Mixed-Effects Models with Unspecified Random-Effects Distribution Xin Gao, York University     Model selection for high-dimensional data with applications in feature selection and network building Abbas Khalili, McGill University     Regularization in finite mixture of regression models with diverging number of parameters
15:15 - 15:45	Break
15:45 - 17:45	Invited talks: Session Chair Jinchi Lv Sunil Rao, University of Miami     Mixing Generalized Ridge Regressions Shojaeddin Chenouri, University of Waterloo     Comparison of Two Populations of Curves with an Application in Neuronal Data Analysis Xiaoli Gao, Oakland University     LAD Fused Lasso Signal Approximation Enayet Raheem, Windsor Essex County Health Unit     Absolute Penalty and B-spline-based Shrinkage Estimation in Partially Linear Models
18:00 - 20:00	Conference Banquet at the Faculty Club
Saturday June 11
08:30 - 09:00	Coffee
09:00 - 10:00	Plenary talk: Session Chair Ejaz Ahmed Rudy Beran, University of California-Davis Estimating Many Means: A Mosaic of Recent Methodologies
10:00 - 10:30	Break
10:30 - 12:00	Invited talks: Session Chair Qian Zhou Kjell Doksum, University of Wisconsin-Madison     Biomedical large scale inference Bin Nan, University of Michigan     Sparse 3D Functional Regression via Haar Wavelets Ejaz Ahmed, University of Windsor System/Machine Bias versus Human Bias: Generalized Linear Models
12:00-12:15	Concluding Remarks

Final List of Participants:

Full Name	University Name
Ahmed, Ejaz	University of Windsor
Al-Momani, Marwan	University of Windsor
Alquier, Pierre	Université Paris 7
Beran, Rudolf	University of California, Davis
Bickis, Mikelis	University of Saskatchewan
Briollais, Laurent	Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
Cai, Song	University of British Columbia
Camacho, Fernando	DAMOS Inc
Chang, Billy	University of Toronto
Chen, Jiahua	University of British Columbia
Chenouri, Shojaeddin	University of Waterloo
Chitsaz, Shabnam	University of Windsor
Doksum, Kjell	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fallahpour, Saber	University of Windsor
Feng, Yang	Columbia University
Fraser, D.A.S.	University of Toronto
Gao, Xiaoli	Oakland University
Gao, Xin	York University
Gel, Yulia	University of Waterloo
Hussein, Abdulkadir	University of Windsor
Jin, Jiashun	Carnegie Mellon University
Johnson, Timothy	University of Michigan
Khalili, Abbas	McGill University
Kim, Peter	University of Guelph
Kou, Samuel	Harvard University
Li, Longhai	University of Saskatchewan
Li, Xiao	Queen's University
Liang, Hua	University of Rochester
Lin, Chunfang Devon	Queen's University
Lin, Eric	University of Windsor
Lin, Xihong	Harvard School of Public Health
Liu, Yufeng	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Liu, Zi Zhen	University of Western Ontario
Lou, Wendy	University of Toronto
Lv, Jinchi	University of Southern California
McLeod, Ian A.	University of Western Ontario
Mojirsheibani, Majid	Carleton University
Monette, Georges	York University
Nan, Bin	University of Michigan
Pichika, Sathish Chandra	McMaster University
Qu, Annie	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Raheem, Enayetur	University of Windsor
Rao, J. Sunil	University of Miami
Reid, Nancy	University of Toronto
Ryan, Dan	University of Northern British Columbia
Scollnik, David	University of Calgary
Shen, Xiaotong	University of Minnesota
Shohoudi, Azadeh	McGill University
Shum, Marco	University of Western Ontario
Singh, Radhey	University of Guelph
Small, Christopher	University of Waterloo
Song, Peter	University of Michigan
Sun, Lei	University of Toronto
Tong, Xin	Princeton University
Xu, Chen	University of British Columbia
Zaihra, Tasneem	University of New Brunswick, Saint John
Zhang, Helen	North Carolina State University
Zhou, Qian	Harvard School of Public Health
Zhu, Hongtu	The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Zhu, Mu	University of Waterloo

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