Related papers: Testing Closeness of Discrete Distributions
We investigate the statistical task of closeness (or equivalence) testing for multidimensional distributions. Specifically, given sample access to two unknown distributions $\mathbf p, \mathbf q$ on $\mathbb R^d$, we want to distinguish…
We consider the $(1+\epsilon)$-approximate nearest neighbor search problem: given a set $X$ of $n$ points in a $d$-dimensional space, build a data structure that, given any query point $y$, finds a point $x \in X$ whose distance to $y$ is…
In this paper we present the first provable approximate nearest-neighbor (ANN) algorithms for Bregman divergences. Our first algorithm processes queries in O(log^d n) time using O(n log^d n) space and only uses general properties of the…
For a set of $n$ points in $\Re^d$, and parameters $k$ and $\eps$, we present a data structure that answers $(1+\eps,k)$-\ANN queries in logarithmic time. Surprisingly, the space used by the data-structure is $\Otilde (n /k)$; that is, the…
In this work, we study how to efficiently obtain perfect samples from a discrete distribution $\mathcal{D}$ given access only to pairwise comparisons of elements of its support. Specifically, we assume access to samples $(x, S)$, where $S$…
A conditional sampling oracle for a probability distribution D returns samples from the conditional distribution of D restricted to a specified subset of the domain. A recent line of work (Chakraborty et al. 2013 and Cannone et al. 2014)…
We study the problem of sampling from a $d$-dimensional distribution with density $p(x)\propto e^{-f(x)}$, which does not necessarily satisfy good isoperimetric conditions. Specifically, we show that for any $L,M$ satisfying $LM\ge d\ge 5$,…
We study the problem of estimating the edit distance between two $n$-character strings. While exact computation in the worst case is believed to require near-quadratic time, previous work showed that in certain regimes it is possible to…
In this paper we consider the uniformity testing problem for high-dimensional discrete distributions (multinomials) under sparse alternatives. More precisely, we derive sharp detection thresholds for testing, based on $n$ samples, whether a…
We provide a deterministic algorithm that outputs an $O(n^{3/4} \log n)$-approximation for the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) of two input sequences of length $n$ in near-linear time. This is the first deterministic approximation…
Change point detection plays a fundamental role in many real-world applications, where the goal is to analyze and monitor the behaviour of a data stream. In this paper, we study change detection in binary streams. To this end, we use a…
We describe a distributed randomized algorithm computing approximate distances and routes that approximate shortest paths. Let n denote the number of nodes in the graph, and let HD denote the hop diameter of the graph, i.e., the diameter of…
We show how to compute the edit distance between two strings of length n up to a factor of 2^{\~O(sqrt(log n))} in n^(1+o(1)) time. This is the first sub-polynomial approximation algorithm for this problem that runs in near-linear time,…
We study gossip algorithms for the rumor spreading problem which asks one node to deliver a rumor to all nodes in an unknown network. We present the first protocol for any expander graph $G$ with $n$ nodes such that, the protocol informs…
Given a finite metric space $(X\cup Y, \mathbf{d})$ the $k$-median problem is to find a set of $k$ centers $C\subseteq Y$ that minimizes $\sum_{p\in X} \min_{c\in C} \mathbf{d}(p,c)$. In general metrics, the best polynomial time algorithm…
We study sublinear time algorithms for estimating the size of maximum matching. After a long line of research, the problem was finally settled by Behnezhad [FOCS'22], in the regime where one is willing to pay an approximation factor of $2$.…
We consider the problem of inference in discrete probabilistic models, that is, distributions over subsets of a finite ground set. These encompass a range of well-known models in machine learning, such as determinantal point processes and…
A pair of probability distributions over $\{0,1\}^n$ is said to be $(k,\delta)$-wise indistinguishable if all of the size $k$ marginals are within statistical distance at most $\delta$. Previous works introduced this concept and study when…
The index coding problem is concerned with broadcasting encoded information to a collection of receivers in a way that enables each receiver to discover its required data based on its side information, which comprises the data required by…
We study the problem of generating a sample from the stationary distribution of a Markov chain, given a method to simulate the chain. We give an approximation algorithm for the case of a random walk on a regular graph with n vertices that…