Related papers: Quasi-concave density estimation

It is proven that a conjecture of Tao (2010) holds true for log-concave random variables on the integers: For every $n \geq 1$, if $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ are i.i.d. integer-valued, log-concave random variables, then $$ H(X_1+\cdots+X_{n+1}) \geq…

Convergence properties of Shannon Entropy are studied. In the differential setting, it is shown that weak convergence of probability measures, or convergence in distribution, is not enough for convergence of the associated differential…

We show that Shannon's entropy--power inequality admits a strengthened version in the case in which the densities are log-concave. In such a case, in fact, one can extend the Blachman--Stam argument to obtain a sharp inequality for the…

Given a random sample of points from some unknown density, we propose a data-driven method for estimating density level sets under the r-convexity assumption. This shape condition generalizes the convexity property. However, the main…

We prove that the exponent of the entropy of one dimensional projections of a log-concave random vector defines a 1/5-seminorm. We make two conjectures concerning reverse entropy power inequalities in the log-concave setting and discuss…

In this paper we develop tools for studying limit theorems by means of convexity. We establish bounds for the discrepancy in total variation between probability measures $\mu$ and $\nu$ such that $\nu$ is log-concave with respect to $\mu$.…

Mixture models are regularly used in density estimation applications, but the problem of estimating the mixing distribution remains a challenge. Nonparametric maximum likelihood produce estimates of the mixing distribution that are…

Bayesian inference requires approximation methods to become computable, but for most of them it is impossible to quantify how close the approximation is to the true posterior. In this work, we present a theorem upper-bounding the KL…

We propose a closed-form spectral framework for relative log-density estimation in linearly parameterized probabilistic models, including unnormalized and conditional models. This is achieved by representing the Kullback-Leibler (KL)…

Suppose $X_1,\dots, X_n$ is a random sample from a bounded and decreasing density $f_0$ on $[0,\infty)$. We are interested in estimating such $f_0$, with special interest in $f_0(0)$. This problem is encountered in various statistical…

We explore computational aspects of maximum likelihood estimation of the mixture proportions of a nonparametric finite mixture model -- a convex optimization problem with old roots in statistics and a key member of the modern data analysis…

In the framework of shape constrained estimation, we review methods and works done in convex set estimation. These methods mostly build on stochastic and convex geometry, empirical process theory, functional analysis, linear programming,…

Shape constraints yield flexible middle grounds between fully nonparametric and fully parametric approaches to modeling distributions of data. The specific assumption of log-concavity is motivated by applications across economics, survival…

Density level sets can be estimated using plug-in methods, excess mass algorithms or a hybrid of the two previous methodologies. The plug-in algorithms are based on replacing the unknown density by some nonparametric estimator, usually the…

We show that a mixture of Beta distributions has log-concave density whenever the mixing weights are themselves log-concave. Some economic and statistical applications are provided in the last section.

We present a minimax optimal solution to the problem of estimating a compact, convex set from finitely many noisy measurements of its support function. The solution is based on appropriate regularizations of the least squares estimator.…

We establish that the optimal bound for the size of the smallest integral solution of the Oppenheim Diophantine approximation problem $\abs{Q(x)-\xi}< \epsilon$ for a generic ternary form $Q$ is $\abs{x}\ll \epsilon^{-1}$. We also establish…

This paper deals with the problem of density estimation. We aim at building an estimate of an unknown density as a linear combination of functions of a dictionary. Inspired by Cand\`es and Tao's approach, we propose an $\ell_1$-minimization…

We consider the problem of estimating the population probability distribution given a finite set of multivariate samples, using the maximum entropy approach. In strict keeping with Jaynes' original definition, our precise formulation of the…

For sampling from a log-concave density, we study implicit integrators resulting from $\theta$-method discretization of the overdamped Langevin diffusion stochastic differential equation. Theoretical and algorithmic properties of the…