Current statistical inference problems in genomic data analysis involve parameter estimation for high-dimensional multivariate distributions, with typically unknown and intricate correlation patterns among variables. Addressing these inference questions satisfactorily requires: (i) an intensive...

Suppose that we observe a sample of independent and identically distributed realizations of a random variable. Assume that the parameter of interest can be defined as the minimizer, over a suitably defined parameter space, of the expectation (with respect to the distribution of the random...

An important problem in epidemiology and medical research is the estimation of a causal effect of a treatment action at a single point in time on the mean of an outcome within a population defined by strata of some of the observed covariates. Marginal structural models (MSM) are models for...

In van der Laan and Dudoit (2003) we propose and theoretically study a unified loss function based statistical methodology, which provides a road map for estimation and performance assessment. Given a parameter of interest which can be described as the minimizer of the population mean of a loss...