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Polynomial transforms in regression result in multiple p-values for each variable. Is there a single, proxy value that can represent these p-values?

I use Python's statsmodels.formula.api for most regression tasks. When I test a large number of variables in a model, I check their p-values to be confident that the variables are actually improving the model.
I usually apply polynomial transformations to variables to test whether that improves the fit. For example, this is the equation for a polynomial transform of 3 degrees to variable x:
ŷ = C + β₁x + β₂x² + β₃x³
My problem is that each term of the variable x has its own p-value. That is, there's a separate p-value for the x, x² and x³ terms.
In a multivariate regression model, where the predictors X comprises n individual variables x₁, x₁, ... xₙ, I have no way to assess the p-value of xᵢ if I applied a polynomial transform to it.
In this code, I apply a 3-degree polynomial transform to X:
import statsmodels.formula.api as smf
X = data["predictor"]
y = data["outcome"]
model = smf.ols(
formula="outcome ~ predictor + I(predictor**2) + I(predictor**3)",
data=data
)
results = model.fit()
print(results.pvalues)
This will yield 4 p-values: one for the constant/intercept, and one for each term of X. Can I somehow combine the p-values of X, or otherwise develop a proxy measure for them that is a single value?

Orthogonal Distance Regression of a trajectory in space (3D)

I'm using scipy ODR to perform a Othogonal Linear Regression.
I have a matrix of shape (nlines,3) representing trajectory coordinates, that is the columns are the x,y,z coordinates of a point moving in space.
The goal is to find the straight line that best approximate/fits the trajectory (similarly as asked here). Hence, the output straight line has the same shape as input: (nlines,3).
Problem:
what Model should I use for the intended goal? I'm trying odr.multilinear but I get an error.
Following the example given in the documentation with minor modification
# traj_data is my 2D data matrix with x,y,z coordinates
# create the array for the independent variable
nsamples = np.arange(0,traj_data.shape[0])
nsamples_3d = np.column_stack((nsamples, nsamples, nsamples))
# Define the function you want to fit against.:
linear = odr.multilinear # is this the correct Model to use?
# Create a Data instance.:
mydata = odr.Data(nsamples_3d, traj_data, wd=1, we=1)
# Instantiate ODR with your data, model and initial parameter estimate.:
myodr = odr.ODR(mydata, linear, beta0=[1., 2.])
# Run the fit.:
myoutput = myodr.run()
However, execution stops at
myodr = odr.ODR(mydata, linear, beta0=[1., 2.])
with the error
scipy.odr.odrpack.OdrError: fcn does not output [11700, 3]-shaped array
(where 11700 is nlines in the specific example I ran)
I have no problem when using 1D data.
Am I doing something wrong?

Is there a way to get the probability of a prediction using XGBoostRegressor?

I have built a XGBoostRegressor model using around 200 categorical features predicting a countinous time variable.
But I would want to get both the actual prediction and the probability of that prediction as output. Is there any way to get this from the XGBoostRegressor model?
So I both want and P(Y|X) as output. Any idea how to do this?

There is no probability in regression, In regression the only output you will get is a predicted value thats why it is called regression, so for any regressor probability of a prediction is not possible. Its only there in classification.

As mentioned before, there is no probability associated with regression.
However, you could probably add a confidence interval on that regression, to see whether or not your regression can be trusted.
One thing to note though, is that the variance might not be the same along the data.
Let's assume that you study a time based phenomenon. Specifically, you have the temperature (y) after (x) time (in sec for instance) inside an oven. At x = 0s it is at 20°C, and you start heating it, and want to know the evolution in order to predict the temperature after x seconds. The variance could be the same after 20 seconds and after 5 minutes, or be completely different. This is called heteroscedasticity.
If you want to use a confidence interval, you probably want to make sure that you took care of heteroscedasticity, so your interval is the same for all the data.
You can probably try to get the distribution of your known outputs and compare the prediction on that curve, and check the pvalue. But that would only give you a measure of how realistic it is to get that output, without taking the input into consideration. If you know your inputs/outputs are in a specific interval, this could work.
EDIT
This is how I would do it. Obviously the outputs are your real outputs.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from scipy import integrate
from scipy.interpolate import interp1d
N = 1000 # The number of sample
mean = 0
std = 1
outputs = np.random.normal(loc=mean, scale=std, size=N)
# We want to get a normed histogram (since this is PDF, if we integrate
# it must be equal to 1)
nbins = N / 10
n = int(N / nbins)
p, x = np.histogram(outputs, bins=n, normed=True)
plt.hist(outputs, bins=n, normed=True)
x = x[:-1] + (x[ 1] - x[0])/2 # converting bin edges to centers
# Now we want to interpolate :
# f = CubicSpline(x=x, y=p, bc_type='not-a-knot')
f = interp1d(x=x, y=p, kind='quadratic', fill_value='extrapolate')
x = np.linspace(-2.9*std, 2.9*std, 10000)
plt.plot(x, f(x))
plt.show()
# To check :
area = integrate.quad(f, x[0], x[-1])
print(area) # (should be close to 1)
Now, the interpolate method is not great for outliers. if a predicted data is extremely far (more than 3 times the std) from your distribution, it wont work. Other than that, you can now use the PDF to get meaningful results.
It is not perfect, but it is the best I came up with in that time. I'm sure there are some better ways to do it. If your data follow a normal law, it becomes trivial.

I suggest you to look into Ngboost (essentially a wrapper of Xgboost which provides eventually a probabilistic model.
Here you can find slides on the Ngboost functioning and the seminal Ngboost paper.
The basic idea is to assume a specific distribution for $P(Y|X=x)$ (by default is the Gaussian distribution) and fit an Xgboost model to estimate the best parameters of the distribution (for the Gaussian $\mu$ and $\sigma$. The model will split the variables' space into different regions with different distributions, i.e. same family (eg. Gaussian) but different parameters.
After training the model, you're provided with the method '''pred_dist''' which returns the estimated distribution $P(Y|X=x)$ for a given set of values $x$

Closed Form Ridge Regression

I am having trouble understanding the output of my function to implement multiple-ridge regression. I am doing this from scratch in Python for the closed form of the method. This closed form is shown below:
I have a training set X that is 100 rows x 10 columns and a vector y that is 100x1.
My attempt is as follows:
def ridgeRegression(xMatrix, yVector, lambdaRange):
wList = []
for i in range(1, lambdaRange+1):
lambVal = i
# compute the inner values (X.T X + lambda I)
xTranspose = np.transpose(x)
xTx = xTranspose # x
lamb_I = lambVal * np.eye(xTx.shape[0])
# invert inner, e.g. (inner)**(-1)
inner_matInv = np.linalg.inv(xTx + lamb_I)
# compute outer (X.T y)
outer_xTy = np.dot(xTranspose, y)
# multiply together
w = inner_matInv # outer_xTy
wList.append(w)
print(wList)
For testing, I am running it with the first 5 lambda values.
wList becomes 5 numpy.arrays each of length 10 (I'm assuming for the 10 coefficients).
Here is the first of those 5 arrays:
array([ 0.29686755, 1.48420319, 0.36388528, 0.70324668, -0.51604451,
2.39045735, 1.45295857, 2.21437745, 0.98222546, 0.86124358])
My question, and clarification:
Shouldn't there be 11 coefficients, (1 for the y-intercept + 10 slopes)?
How do I get the Minimum Square Error from this computation?
What comes next if I wanted to plot this line?
I think I am just really confused as to what I'm looking at, since I'm still working on my linear-algebra.
Thanks!

First, I would modify your ridge regression to look like the following:
import numpy as np
def ridgeRegression(X, y, lambdaRange):
wList = []
# Get normal form of `X`
A = X.T # X
# Get Identity matrix
I = np.eye(A.shape[0])
# Get right hand side
c = X.T # y
for lambVal in range(1, lambdaRange+1):
# Set up equations Bw = c
lamb_I = lambVal * I
B = A + lamb_I
# Solve for w
w = np.linalg.solve(B,c)
wList.append(w)
return wList
Notice that I replaced your inv call to compute the matrix inverse with an implicit solve. This is much more numerically stable, which is an important consideration for these types of problems especially.
I've also taken the A=X.T#X computation, identity matrix I generation, and right hand side vector c=X.T#y computation out of the loop--these don't change within the loop and are relatively expensive to compute.
As was pointed out by #qwr, the number of columns of X will determine the number of coefficients you have. You have not described your model, so it's not clear how the underlying domain, x, is structured into X.
Traditionally, one might use polynomial regression, in which case X is the Vandermonde Matrix. In that case, the first coefficient would be associated with the y-intercept. However, based on the context of your question, you seem to be interested in multivariate linear regression. In any case, the model needs to be clearly defined. Once it is, then the returned weights may be used to further analyze your data.

Typically to make notation more compact, the matrix X contains a column of ones for an intercept, so if you have p predictors, the matrix is dimensions n by p+1. See Wikipedia article on linear regression for an example.
To compute in-sample MSE, use the definition for MSE: the average of squared residuals. To compute generalization error, you need cross-validation.

Also, you shouldn't take lambVal as an integer. It can be small (close to 0) if the aim is just to avoid numerical error when xTx is ill-conditionned.
I would advise you to use a logarithmic range instead of a linear one, starting from 0.001 and going up to 100 or more if you want to. For instance you can change your code to that:
powerMin = -3
powerMax = 3
for i in range(powerMin, powerMax):
lambVal = 10**i
print(lambVal)
And then you can try a smaller range or a linear range once you figure out what is the correct order of lambVal with your data from cross-validation.

How to change parameters of a scikit learn function dynamically i.e. find best parameter

I am trying to do dimensionality reduction using PCA function of sklearn, specifically
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
def mypca(X,comp):
pca = PCA(n_components=comp)
pca.fit(X)
PCA(copy=True, n_components=comp, whiten=False)
Xpca = pca.fit_transform(X)
return Xpca
for n_comp in range(10,1000,20):
Xpca = mypca(X,n_comp) # X is a 2 dimensional array
print Xpca
I am calling mypca function from a loop with different values for comp. I am doing this in order to find the best value of comp for the problem I am trying to solve. But mypca function always returns the same value i.e. Xpca irrespective of value of comp.
The value it returns is correct for first value of comp I send from the loop i.e. Xpca value which it sends each time is correct for comp = 10 in my case.
What should I do in order to find best value of comp?

You use PCA to reduce the dimension.
From your code:
for n_comp in range(10,1000,20):
Xpca = mypca(X,n_comp) # X is a 2 dimensional array
print Xpca
Your input dataset X is only a 2 dimensional array, the minimum n_comp is 10, so the PCA try to find the 10 best dimension for you. Since 10 > 2, you will always get the same answer. :)

It looks like you're trying to pass different values for number of components, and re-fit with each. A great thing about PCA is that it's actually not necessary to do this. You can fit the full number of components (even as many components as dimensions in your dataset), then simply discard the components you don't want (i.e. those with small variance). This is equivalent to re-fitting the entire model with fewer components. Saves a lot of computation.
How to do it:
# x = input data, size(<points>, <dimensions>)
# fit the full model
max_components = x.shape[1] # as many components as input dimensions
pca = PCA(n_components=max_components)
pca.fit(x)
# transform the data (contains all components)
y_all = pca.transform(x)
# keep only the top k components (with greatest variance)
k = 2
y = y_all[:, 0:k]
In terms of how to select the number of components, it depends what you want to do. One standard way of choosing the number of components k is to look at the fraction of variance explained (R^2) by each choice of k. If your data is distributed near a low-dimensional linear subspace, then when you plot R^2 vs. k, the curve will have an 'elbow' shape. The elbow will be located at the dimensionality of the subspace. It's good practice to look at this curve because it helps understand the data. Even if there's no clean elbow, it's common to choose a threshold value for R^2, e.g. to preserve 95% of the variance.
Here's how to do it (this should be done on the model with max_components components):
# Calculate fraction of variance explained
# for each choice of number of components
r2 = pca.explained_variance_.cumsum() / x.var(0).sum()
Another way you might want to proceed is to take the PCA-transformed data and feed it to a downstream algorithm (e.g. classifier/regression), then select your number of components based on the performance (e.g. using cross validation).
Side note: Maybe just a formatting issue, but your code block in mypca() should be indented, or it won't be interpreted as part of the function.