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We present several new examples of speed-ups obtainable by quantum algorithms in the context of property testing. First, motivated by sampling algorithms, we consider probability distributions given in the form of an oracle $f:[n]\to[m]$.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-05-13 Sourav Chakraborty , Eldar Fischer , Arie Matsliah , Ronald de Wolf

We study the problem of testing discrete distributions with a focus on the high probability regime. Specifically, given samples from one or more discrete distributions, a property $\mathcal{P}$, and parameters $0< \epsilon, \delta <1$, we…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-09-15 Ilias Diakonikolas , Themis Gouleakis , Daniel M. Kane , John Peebles , Eric Price

We study the problem of testing \emph{conditional independence} for discrete distributions. Specifically, given samples from a discrete random variable $(X, Y, Z)$ on domain $[\ell_1]\times[\ell_2] \times [n]$, we want to distinguish, with…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-07-03 Clément L. Canonne , Ilias Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Alistair Stewart

Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are popular probabilistic models of diversity. In this paper, we investigate DPPs from a new perspective: property testing of distributions. Given sample access to an unknown distribution $q$ over the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-11 Khashayar Gatmiry , Maryam Aliakbarpour , Stefanie Jegelka

We study the general problem of testing whether an unknown distribution belongs to a specified family of distributions. More specifically, given a distribution family $\mathcal{P}$ and sample access to an unknown discrete distribution…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-08-09 Clément L. Canonne , Ilias Diakonikolas , Alistair Stewart

We revisit the well-studied problem of estimating the Shannon entropy of a probability distribution, now given access to a probability-revealing conditional sampling oracle. In this model, the oracle takes as input the representation of a…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-06-03 Priyanka Golia , Brendan Juba , Kuldeep S. Meel

What advantage do \emph{sequential} procedures provide over batch algorithms for testing properties of unknown distributions? Focusing on the problem of testing whether two distributions $\mathcal{D}_1$ and $\mathcal{D}_2$ on $\{1,\dots,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-05-13 Omar Fawzi , Nicolas Flammarion , Aurélien Garivier , Aadil Oufkir

We study distribution-free property testing and learning problems where the unknown probability distribution is a product distribution over $\mathbb{R}^d$. For many important classes of functions, such as intersections of halfspaces,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-11-17 Nathaniel Harms , Yuichi Yoshida

The need to condition distributional properties such as expectation, variance, and entropy arises in algorithmic fairness, model simplification, robustness and many other areas. At face value however, distributional properties are not…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2019-03-27 Zenna Tavares , Xin Zhang , Edgar Minaysan , Javier Burroni , Rajesh Ranganath , Armando Solar Lezama

The framework of distribution testing is currently ubiquitous in the field of property testing. In this model, the input is a probability distribution accessible via independently drawn samples from an oracle. The testing task is to…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-09-22 Sourav Chakraborty , Eldar Fischer , Arijit Ghosh , Gopinath Mishra , Sayantan Sen

We revisit the framework of interactive proofs for distribution testing, first introduced by Chiesa and Gur (ITCS 2018), which has recently experienced a surge in interest, accompanied by notable progress (e.g., Herman and Rothblum, STOC…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2025-12-01 Ari Biswas , Mark Bun , Clément Canonne , Satchit Sivakumar

We study distribution testing without direct access to a source of relevant data, but rather to one where only a tiny fraction is relevant. To enable this, we introduce the following verification query model. The goal is to perform a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-09-23 Hadley Black , Christopher Ye

We give a nearly-optimal algorithm for testing uniformity of distributions supported on $\{-1,1\}^n$, which makes $\tilde O (\sqrt{n}/\varepsilon^2)$ queries to a subcube conditional sampling oracle (Bhattacharyya and Chakraborty (2018)).…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-02-08 Clément L. Canonne , Xi Chen , Gautam Kamath , Amit Levi , Erik Waingarten

We tackle the problem of conditioning probabilistic programs on distributions of observable variables. Probabilistic programs are usually conditioned on samples from the joint data distribution, which we refer to as deterministic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-09 David Tolpin , Yuan Zhou , Tom Rainforth , Hongseok Yang

We present a domain-theoretic framework for probabilistic programming that provides a constructive definition of conditional probability and addresses computability challenges previously identified in the literature. We introduce a novel…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-02-04 Pietro Di Gianantonio , Abbas Edalat

We present an algorithm for simulating a distribution using prefix conditional samples (Adar, Fischer and Levi, 2024), as well as ``prefix-compatible'' conditional models such as the interval model (Cannone, Ron and Servedio, 2015) and the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Tomer Adar

We introduce a framework for proving lower bounds on computational problems over distributions against algorithms that can be implemented using access to a statistical query oracle. For such algorithms, access to the input distribution is…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2016-08-16 Vitaly Feldman , Elena Grigorescu , Lev Reyzin , Santosh Vempala , Ying Xiao

We study the fundamental problems of identity testing (goodness of fit), and closeness testing (two sample test) of distributions over $k$ elements, under differential privacy. While the problems have a long history in statistics, finite…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-01 Jayadev Acharya , Ziteng Sun , Huanyu Zhang

We initiate a study of a new model of property testing that is a hybrid of testing properties of distributions and testing properties of strings. Specifically, the new model refers to testing properties of distributions, but these are…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Oded Goldreich , Dana Ron

The field of property testing of probability distributions, or distribution testing, aims to provide fast and (most likely) correct answers to questions pertaining to specific aspects of very large datasets. In this work, we consider a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-04-27 Clément L. Canonne