On min-Storey estimators for multiple testing and conformal novelty detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zijun, Gao, Etienne, Roquain
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zijun, Gao
Etienne, Roquain
author_facet Zijun, Gao
Etienne, Roquain
contents In a multiple testing task, finding an appropriate estimator of the proportion $π_0$ of non-signal in the data to boost power of false discovery rate (FDR) controlling procedures is a long-standing research theme, sometimes referred to as 'adaptive FDR control'. The interest in this theme has been reinforced in the recent years with conformal novelty detection, for which it turns out that similar tools can be used in combination with any 'blackbox' machine learning algorithm. Nevertheless, perhaps surprisingly, finding a solution for 'adaptive FDR control' that is optimal in a broad sense is still an open problem. This paper fills this gap by introducing new $π_0$-estimators, referred to as min-Storey (MS) and interval-min-Storey (IMS), which are built upon the so-called 'Storey estimator'. Plugging these estimators in the adaptive Benjamini-Hochberg (BH) procedure is shown to deliver FDR control both in the independent and conformal settings. In addition, these methods satisfy an optimal power property over any (regular) alternative distribution. The excellent behaviors of the new adaptive procedures are illustrated with numerical experiments both in the independent and conformal models for various distribution structures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_17984
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On min-Storey estimators for multiple testing and conformal novelty detection
Zijun, Gao
Etienne, Roquain
Methodology
Statistics Theory
In a multiple testing task, finding an appropriate estimator of the proportion $π_0$ of non-signal in the data to boost power of false discovery rate (FDR) controlling procedures is a long-standing research theme, sometimes referred to as 'adaptive FDR control'. The interest in this theme has been reinforced in the recent years with conformal novelty detection, for which it turns out that similar tools can be used in combination with any 'blackbox' machine learning algorithm. Nevertheless, perhaps surprisingly, finding a solution for 'adaptive FDR control' that is optimal in a broad sense is still an open problem. This paper fills this gap by introducing new $π_0$-estimators, referred to as min-Storey (MS) and interval-min-Storey (IMS), which are built upon the so-called 'Storey estimator'. Plugging these estimators in the adaptive Benjamini-Hochberg (BH) procedure is shown to deliver FDR control both in the independent and conformal settings. In addition, these methods satisfy an optimal power property over any (regular) alternative distribution. The excellent behaviors of the new adaptive procedures are illustrated with numerical experiments both in the independent and conformal models for various distribution structures.
title On min-Storey estimators for multiple testing and conformal novelty detection
topic Methodology
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17984