1. Introduction. 1.1. Background. Covariance matrix estimation is fundamental for almost all areas of multivariate analysis and many other applied problems. In particular, covariance matrices and their inverses play a central role in risk management and portfolio allocation. For example, the smallest and largest eigenvalues are related to the minimum and maximum variances of the selected portfolio, respectively, and the eigenvectors are related to portfolio allocation. Therefore, we need a good covariance matrix estimator that is well-conditioned, ie inverting it does not excessively amplify the estimation error. See Goldfarb and Iyengar (2003) for applications of covariance matrices to portfolio selections and Johnstone (2001) for their statistical implications. Estimating large dimensional covariance matrices is intrinsically challenging. For example, in portfolio allocation and risk management, the number p of stocks can

A class of variable selection procedures for parametric models via nonconcave penalized likelihood was proposed in Fan and Li (2001a). It has been shown there that the resulting procedures perform as well as if the subset of significant variables were known in advance. Such a property is called an oracle property. The proposed procedures were illustrated in the context of linear regression, robust linear regression and generalized linear models. In this paper, the nonconcave penalized likelihood approach is extended further to the Cox proportional hazards model and the Cox proportional hazards frailty model, two commonly used semi-parametric models in survival analysis. As a result, new variable selection procedures for these two commonly-used models are proposed. It is demonstrated how the rates of convergence depend on the regularization parameter in the penalty function. Further, with a proper choice of

We derive the asymptotic distributions of the spiked eigenvalues and eigenvectors under a generalized and unified asymptotic regime, which takes into account the spike magnitude of leading eigenvalues, sample size, and dimensionality. This new regime allows high dimensionality and diverging eigenvalue spikes and provides new insights into the roles the leading eigenvalues, sample size, and dimensionality play in principal component analysis. The results are proven by a technical device, which swaps the role of rows and columns and converts the high-dimensional problems into low-dimensional ones. Our results are a natural extension of those in Paul (2007) to more general setting with new insights and solve the rates of convergence problems in Shen et al.(2013). They also reveal the biases of the estimation of leading eigenvalues and eigenvectors by using principal component analysis, and lead to a new covariance estimator for the approximate factor model, called shrinkage principal orthogonal complement thresholding (S-POET), that corrects the biases. Our results are successfully applied to outstanding problems in estimation of risks of large portfolios and false discovery proportions for dependent test statistics and are illustrated by simulation studies.

This article studies estimation of partially linear hazard regression models for multivariate survival data. A profile pseudopartial likelihood estimation method is proposed under the marginal hazard model framework. The estimation on the parameters for the linear part is accomplished by maximization of a pseudopartial likelihood profiled over the nonparametric part. This enables us to obtain-consistent estimators of the parametric component. Asymptotic normality is obtained for the estimates of both the linear and nonlinear parts. The new technical challenge is that the nonparametric component is indirectly estimated through its integrated derivative function from a local polynomial fit. An algorithm of fast implementation of our proposed method is presented. Consistent standard error estimates using sandwich-type ideas are also developed, which facilitates inferences for the model. It is shown that the

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