Generalized Boundary FDR Control under Arbitrary Dependence: An Approach on Closure Principle

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhang, Yifan, Zhang, Wentao, Zou, Changliang, Ren, Haojie
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Zhang, Yifan
Zhang, Wentao
Zou, Changliang
Ren, Haojie
author_facet Zhang, Yifan
Zhang, Wentao
Zou, Changliang
Ren, Haojie
contents False discovery rate (FDR) is a cornerstone of modern multiple testing. However, it often fails to guarantee the reliability of "marginal" discoveries that lie at the boundary of the rejection set, which are often crucial in high-precision applications. While recent works (Soloff et al., 2024; Xiang et al., 2025) introduced the boundary false discovery rate (bFDR) to control the error probability at the marginal discovery, their method relies on restrictive assumptions such as independence or specific prior distributions. In this paper, we first propose $k$-bFDR, a novel generalization that controls the error probability of the $k$ least significant discoveries. We then provide a systematic investigation into the theoretical relationship between $k$-bFDR and existing error metrics. Furthermore, building upon the closure principle, we develop Domino, a unified framework that guarantees $k$-bFDR control under arbitrary dependence, applicable for both p-values and e-values. We prove the theoretical validity of the proposed Domino algorithm and demonstrate through extensive numerical experiments that it consistently achieves rigorous $k$-bFDR control while identifying trustworthy marginal discoveries. Analyses of real data reveal that $k$-bFDR control yields higher-quality rejection sets with greater practical significance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_09953
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generalized Boundary FDR Control under Arbitrary Dependence: An Approach on Closure Principle
Zhang, Yifan
Zhang, Wentao
Zou, Changliang
Ren, Haojie
Methodology
False discovery rate (FDR) is a cornerstone of modern multiple testing. However, it often fails to guarantee the reliability of "marginal" discoveries that lie at the boundary of the rejection set, which are often crucial in high-precision applications. While recent works (Soloff et al., 2024; Xiang et al., 2025) introduced the boundary false discovery rate (bFDR) to control the error probability at the marginal discovery, their method relies on restrictive assumptions such as independence or specific prior distributions. In this paper, we first propose $k$-bFDR, a novel generalization that controls the error probability of the $k$ least significant discoveries. We then provide a systematic investigation into the theoretical relationship between $k$-bFDR and existing error metrics. Furthermore, building upon the closure principle, we develop Domino, a unified framework that guarantees $k$-bFDR control under arbitrary dependence, applicable for both p-values and e-values. We prove the theoretical validity of the proposed Domino algorithm and demonstrate through extensive numerical experiments that it consistently achieves rigorous $k$-bFDR control while identifying trustworthy marginal discoveries. Analyses of real data reveal that $k$-bFDR control yields higher-quality rejection sets with greater practical significance.
title Generalized Boundary FDR Control under Arbitrary Dependence: An Approach on Closure Principle
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09953