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Related papers: Concentration Bounds for Stochastic Approximations

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Stochastic processes are a flexible and widely used family of models for statistical modeling. While stochastic processes offer attractive properties such as inclusion of uncertainty properties, their inference is typically intractable,…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-10 Teemu Härkönen , Simo Särkkä

This paper focuses on finding approximate solutions to stochastic optimal control problems with control domains being not necessarily convex, where the state trajectory is subject to controlled stochastic differential equations. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-15 Shaolin Ji , Rundong Xu

We consider the problem of estimating the Optimized Certainty Equivalent (OCE) risk from independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) samples. For the classic sample average approximation (SAA) of OCE, we derive mean-squared error as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-03 Ayon Ghosh , L. A. Prashanth , Krishna Jagannathan

Optimal control under uncertainty is a prevailing challenge for many reasons. One of the critical difficulties lies in producing tractable solutions for the underlying stochastic optimization problem. We show how advanced approximate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-28 Joe Watson , Hany Abdulsamad , Rolf Findeisen , Jan Peters

We give a probabilistic interpretation of the Monte Carlo scheme proposed by Fahim, Touzi and Warin [Ann. Appl. Probab. 21 (2011) 1322-1364] for fully nonlinear parabolic PDEs, and hence generalize it to the path-dependent (or…

Probability · Mathematics 2014-07-03 Xiaolu Tan

This paper is devoted to two different two-time-scale stochastic approximation algorithms for superquantile estimation. We shall investigate the asymptotic behavior of a Robbins-Monro estimator and its convexified version. Our main…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-07-30 Bernard Bercu , Manon Costa , Sébastien Gadat

The results of a series of theoretical studies are reported, examining the convergence rate for different approximate representations of $\alpha$-stable distributions. Although they play a key role in modelling random processes with jumps…

Probability · Mathematics 2020-01-03 Marina Riabiz , Tohid Ardeshiri , Ioannis Kontoyiannis , Simon Godsill

Score based approaches to sampling have shown much success as a generative algorithm to produce new samples from a target density given a pool of initial samples. In this work, we consider if we have no initial samples from the target…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-12-08 Curtis McDonald , Andrew Barron

Sequential Monte Carlo Samplers are a class of stochastic algorithms for Monte Carlo integral estimation w.r.t. probability distributions, which combine elements of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and importance sampling/resampling…

Probability · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Andreas Eberle , Carlo Marinelli

This work develops algorithms for non-parametric confidence regions for samples from a univariate distribution whose support is a discrete mesh bounded on the left. We generalize the theory of Learned-Miller to preorders over the sample…

Computation · Statistics 2026-02-11 George Bissias

Statistical inference for discretely observed jump-diffusion processes is a complex problem which motivates new methodological challenges. Thus existing approaches invariably resort to time-discretisations which inevitably lead to…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-03-02 Flávio B. Gonçalves , Krzysztof G. Łatuszyński , Gareth O. Roberts

Optimal control of stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems is a major challenge in the domain of robot learning. Given the intractability of the global control problem, state-of-the-art algorithms focus on approximate sequential optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-23 Joe Watson , Hany Abdulsamad , Jan Peters

Two-timescale Stochastic Approximation (SA) algorithms are widely used in Reinforcement Learning (RL). Their iterates have two parts that are updated using distinct stepsizes. In this work, we develop a novel recipe for their finite sample…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-06-06 Gal Dalal , Balazs Szorenyi , Gugan Thoppe , Shie Mannor

In this paper, we establish maximal concentration bounds for the iterates generated by a stochastic approximation (SA) algorithm under a contractive operator with respect to some arbitrary norm (for example, the $\ell_\infty$-norm). We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-18 Zaiwei Chen , Siva Theja Maguluri , Martin Zubeldia

Expectation Propagation is a very popular algorithm for variational inference, but comes with few theoretical guarantees. In this article, we prove that the approximation errors made by EP can be bounded. Our bounds have an asymptotic…

Computation · Statistics 2016-01-12 Guillaume P Dehaene , Simon Barthelmé

This paper addresses finite sample stability properties of sequential Monte Carlo methods for approximating sequences of probability distributions. The results presented herein are applicable in the scenario where the start and end…

Computation · Statistics 2015-03-19 Nick Whiteley

Stochastic diffusion is the noisy and uncertain process through which dynamics like epidemics, or agents like animal species, disperse over a larger area. Understanding these processes is becoming increasingly important as we attempt to…

Using concentration inequalities, we give non-asymptotic confidence intervals for estimates obtained by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulations, when using the approximation $\mathbb{E}_{\pi} f\approx (1/(N-t_0))\cdot \sum_{i=t_0+1}^N…

Probability · Mathematics 2015-09-29 Benjamin M. Gyori , Daniel Paulin

In this work we develop an effective Monte Carlo method for estimating sensitivities, or gradients of expectations of sufficiently smooth functionals, of a reflected diffusion in a convex polyhedral domain with respect to its defining…

Probability · Mathematics 2017-12-01 David Lipshutz , Kavita Ramanan

Standard confidence intervals employed in applied statistical analysis are usually based on asymptotic approximations. Such approximations can be considerably inaccurate in small and moderate sized samples. We derive accurate confidence…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-12-14 Eliane C. Pinheiro , Silvia L. P. Ferrari , Francisco M. C. Medeiros