Choosing K and the denoising parameters

This vignette focuses on two practical knobs in the MetaHunt pipeline: the latent rank K and the d-fSPA denoising parameters (N, Delta). For the broader setup — the four assumptions, the three-step pipeline, and the running notation — see vignette("metahunt-intro", package = "MetaHunt").

Why this matters

Choosing K is the single most consequential decision in a MetaHunt fit. Picking K too small underfits: real cross-study heterogeneity gets squashed into a low-rank approximation that cannot represent the data, and downstream predictions are biased. Picking K too large inflates variance and risks recovering spurious “bases” that fit noise. The denoising step in d-fSPA controls finite-sample variance in a complementary way: averaging each study with its near neighbours before basis hunting smooths over per-study estimation error, at the cost of a small smoothing bias.

A small standalone simulation

m <- 30; G <- 20; K_true <- 3
x <- seq(0, 1, length.out = G)
basis <- rbind(sin(pi * x), cos(pi * x), x)
W <- data.frame(w1 = rnorm(m), w2 = rnorm(m))
beta <- cbind(c(1, -0.8), c(-0.5, 1.2), c(0, 0))
pi_true <- exp(as.matrix(W) %*% beta); pi_true <- pi_true / rowSums(pi_true)
F_hat <- pi_true %*% basis + matrix(rnorm(m * G, sd = 0.05), m, G)

Unsupervised diagnostic: reconstruction error vs K

The elbow plot tracks how well the recovered bases reconstruct the observed F_hat as a function of K. It is unsupervised — it does not use W — and is fast.

elbow <- reconstruction_error_curve(F_hat, K_range = 2:6,
                                    dfspa_args = list(denoise = FALSE))
plot(elbow$K, elbow$error, type = "b",
     xlab = "K", ylab = "reconstruction error",
     main = "Reconstruction error vs K",
     ylim = c(0, max(elbow$error, na.rm = TRUE) * 1.05))

Supervised diagnostic: cross-validated prediction error vs K

The CV prediction-error curve uses the metadata W to predict held-out studies’ functions and reports the average prediction error. This is supervised and tends to identify a tighter elbow when the metadata is informative.

cv <- cv_error_curve(F_hat, W, K_range = 2:6, n_folds = 4,
                     dfspa_args = list(denoise = FALSE), seed = 1)
plot(cv$K, cv$cv_error, type = "b",
     xlab = "K", ylab = "CV prediction error",
     main = "CV prediction error vs K",
     ylim = c(0, max(cv$cv_error, na.rm = TRUE) * 1.05))

Both curves should dip near K = 3, the true rank in this simulation.

The d-fSPA denoising knobs (N, Delta)

dfspa() averages each study with its near neighbours before running the projection algorithm. Two parameters control this: N (the neighbourhood size, in number of studies) and Delta (a distance threshold). Larger N and Delta smooth more aggressively.

Bypassing denoising

In clean simulations or with small m, the simplest choice is to bypass denoising entirely. This avoids the small-sample failure mode where aggressive denoising prunes too many studies.

fit_no <- metahunt(F_hat, W, K = K_true,
                   dfspa_args = list(denoise = FALSE))
fit_no
#> MetaHunt fit
#>   m (studies):    30 
#>   G (grid size):  20 
#>   K (bases):      3 
#>   weight method:  dirichlet 
#>   predictors:     w1, w2

Setting (N, Delta) by hand

If you have a sense of scale for the within-study estimation error, pass N and Delta directly. These two calls illustrate a hand-tuned and a near-default configuration on the same data.

fit_no <- metahunt(F_hat, W, K = K_true,
                   dfspa_args = list(denoise = FALSE))

fit_manual <- metahunt(F_hat, W, K = K_true,
                       dfspa_args = list(N = 0.5 * log(nrow(F_hat)),
                                         Delta = 0.4))

Tuning (N, Delta) by CV

select_denoising_params() cross-validates over a grid of (N, Delta) combinations at fixed K. With small m, the search will frequently warn that some combinations prune everything (“Only 0 studies survive denoising but K = 3…”). These warnings are expected: aggressive (N, Delta) on small training folds is too strong. The function records those folds as failures and returns the best surviving combination.

tune <- select_denoising_params(F_hat, W, K = K_true, n_folds = 4, seed = 1)
tune$best
#> $N
#> [1] 0.6802395
#> 
#> $Delta
#> [1] 0.04555978
#> 
#> $cv_error
#> [1] 0.0900349

Practical recipe

Start with the elbow plot to get a rough range for K. Refine with the CV curve if W is informative.
For very small m (say m < 30), bypass denoising (denoise = FALSE) and pick K from the CV curve.
For larger m, leave the d-fSPA defaults on or tune (N, Delta) with select_denoising_params().
Treat warnings from select_denoising_params() as informative, not fatal. The reported best is the best surviving combination.
Sanity-check the recovered bases visually with plot(fit). Bases that look like noise are a sign of K set too high.