Willett, RebeccaNowak, Robert David2007-10-312007-10-312003-08-202003-08-27R. Willett and R. D. Nowak, "Multiscale Density Estimation," <i>Rice University ECE Technical Report,</i> 2003.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/20454Tech ReportThe nonparametric density estimation method proposed in this paper is computationally fast, capable of detecting density discontinuities and singularities at a very high resolution, spatially adaptive, and offers near minimax convergence rates for broad classes of densities including Besov spaces. At the heart of this new method lie multiscale signal decompositions based on piecewise-polynomial functions and penalized likelihood estimation. Upper bounds on the estimation error are derived using an information-theoretic risk bound based on squared Hellinger loss. The method and theory share many of the desirable features associated with wavelet-based density estimators, but also offers several advantages including guaranteed non-negativity, bounds on the L1 error, small-sample quantification of the estimation errors, and additional flexibility and adaptability. In particular, the method proposed here can adapt the degrees as well as the locations of the polynomial pieces. For a certain class of densities, the error of the variable degree estimator converges at nearly the parametric rate. Experimental results demonstrate the advantages of the new approach compared to traditional density estimators and wavelet-based estimators.engNonparametric estimationwaveletsminimax riskWavelet based Signal/Image ProcessingMultiscale MethodsReportNonparametric estimationwaveletsminimax risk