We propose a general framework for constructing powerful, sequential hypothesis tests for a large class of nonparametric testing problems. The null hypothesis for these problems is defined in an abstract form using the action of two known operators on the data distribution. This abstraction allows for a unified treatment of several classical tasks, such as two-sample testing, independence testing, and conditional-independence testing, as well as modern problems, such as testing for adversarial robustness of machine learning (ML) models. Our proposed framework has the following advantages over classical batch tests: 1) it continuously monitors online data streams and efficiently aggregates evidence against the null, 2) it provides tight control over the type I error without the need for multiple testing correction, 3) it adapts the sample size requirement to the unknown hardness of the problem. We develop a principled approach of leveraging the representation capability of ML models within the testing-by-betting framework, a game-theoretic approach for designing sequential tests. Empirical results on synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that tests instantiated using our general framework are competitive against specialized baselines on several tasks.

SUMMARY: Accurate clustering of mixed data, encompassing binary, categorical, and continuous variables, is vital for effective patient stratification in clinical questionnaire analysis. To address this need, we present longmixr, a comprehensive R package providing a robust framework for clustering mixed longitudinal data using finite mixture modeling techniques. By incorporating consensus clustering, longmixr ensures reliable and stable clustering results. Moreover, the package includes a detailed vignette that facilitates cluster exploration and visualization. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The R package is freely available at https://cran.r-project.org/package=longmixr with detailed documentation, including a case vignette, at https://cellmapslab.github.io/longmixr/.

Independent component analysis (ICA) is a blind source separation method for linear disentanglement of independent latent sources from observed data. We investigate the special setting of noisy linear ICA, referred to as ShIndICA, where the observations are split among different views, each receiving a mixture of shared and individual sources. We prove that the corresponding linear structure is identifiable and the sources distribution can be recovered. To computationally estimate the sources, we optimize a constrained form of the joint log-likelihood of the observed data among all views. Furthermore, we propose a model selection procedure for recovering the number of shared sources. Finally, we empirically demonstrate the advantages of our model over baselines. We apply ShIndICA in a challenging real-life task, using three transcriptome datasets provided by three different labs (three different views). The recovered sources were used for a downstream graph inference task, facilitating the discovery of a plausible representation of the data’s underlying graph structure.