提出新评估框架,解决在线多重检验中误报与漏报的权衡难题。
A Regret Perspective on Online Multiple Testing

- 引入加权后悔值统一评估标准,揭示确定性方法在冷启动期必然产生线性后悔。
- 提出解耦式在线多重检验(DOMT),实现非负随机扰动下的零额外假阴性。
- 适用于自动化流水线,特别适合信号稀疏或突发数据场景,可实现近最优后悔控制。
在线多重检验(OMT)是序列统计推断的核心,传统上分别评估错误发现率(FDR)和统计功效,忽略了现代自动化流程中假阳性与假阴性成本的高度不对称。为此,我们提出加权后悔值(Weighted Regret)作为统一评估指标。在该框架下,证明了后悔守恒的对偶性:仅依赖确定性方法严格控制FDR时,必然面临Ω(T)的线性后悔惩罚,因信号稀疏的冷启动阶段导致阈值耗尽,引发大量假阴性。针对外部测试流,提出解耦式-OMT(DOMT)作为无基准依赖的元封装器。通过引入历史解耦、严格非负的随机扰动,使确定性基线免于严重阈值耗尽。关键在于,它在平稳环境中保持精确渐近安全,并在有限样本下严格控制误差膨胀。保证零额外假阴性,可在突发环境实现Ω(√T)的后悔降低,其推导出的“冷启动税”精确刻画了算法优势的相变边界。实验验证,DOMT持续降低经验加权后悔,在非平稳帕累托前沿上实现次线性阈值耗尽缓解。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Online Multiple Testing (OMT), a fundamental pillar of sequential statistical inference, traditionally evaluates the False Discovery Rate (FDR) and statistical power in isolation, obscuring the highly asymmetric costs of false positives and false negatives in modern automated pipelines. To unify this evaluation, we introduce $\textit{Weighted Regret}$. Under this metric, we prove the $\textit{Duality of Regret Conservation}$: purely deterministic procedures ensuring strict FDR control inevitably incur an $Ω(T)$ linear regret penalty, as threshold depletion during signal-sparse cold starts forces massive false negatives. Tailored for exogenous testing streams, we propose Decoupled-OMT (DOMT) as a baseline-agnostic meta-wrapper. By incorporating a history-decoupled, strictly non-negative random perturbation, DOMT rescues purely deterministic baselines from severe threshold depletion. Crucially, it preserves exact asymptotic safety in stationary environments and rigorously bounds finite-sample error inflation during cold-starts. Guaranteeing zero additional false negatives, it yields an order-optimal $Ω(\sqrt{T})$ regret reduction in bursty environments, with a derived ``Cold-Start Tax'' characterizing the exact phase transition of algorithmic superiority. Experiments validate that DOMT consistently curtails empirical weighted regret, achieving an order-optimal sublinear mitigation of threshold depletion to navigate the non-stationary Pareto frontier.
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