Ensemble Linear Subspace Analysis of High-Dimensional Data

Regression models provide prediction frameworks for multivariate mutual information analysis that uses information concepts when choosing covariates (also called features) that are important for analysis and prediction. We consider a high dimensional regression framework where the number of covariates (p) exceed the sample size (n). Recent work in high dimensional regression analysis has embraced an ensemble subspace approach that consists of selecting random subsets of covariates with fewer than p covariates, doing statistical analysis on each subset, and then merging the results from the subsets. We examine conditions under which penalty methods such as Lasso perform better when used in the ensemble approach by computing mean squared prediction errors for simulations and a real data example. Linear models with both random and fixed designs are considered. We examine two versions of penalty methods: one where the tuning parameter is selected by cross-validation; and one where the final predictor is a trimmed average of individual predictors corresponding to the members of a set of fixed tuning parameters. We find that the ensemble approach improves on penalty methods for several important real data and model scenarios. The improvement occurs when covariates are strongly associated with the response, when the complexity of the model is high. In such cases, the trimmed average version of ensemble Lasso is often the best predictor.