Related papers: On the Random Sampling of Pairs, with Pedestrian e…

We describe a very simple method for `consistent sampling' that allows for sampling with replacement. The method extends previous approaches to consistent sampling, which assign a pseudorandom real number to each element, and sample those…

Let $M$ be an ordered matching of size $n$, that is, a partition of the set $[2n]$ into 2-element subsets. The sock number of $M$ is the maximum size of a sub-matching of $M$ in which all left-ends of the edges precede all the right-ends…

This short note deals with the so-called $ Sock \; Matching \; Problem$. We define $B_{n,k}$ as the number of all the finite sequences $a_1, \ldots, a_{2n}$ of nonnegative integers which contain at least one occurrence of $k$ $(1 \leq k…

"No two rainbows are the same. Neither are two packs of Skittles. Enjoy an odd mix!". Using an interpretation via spatial random walks, we quantify the probability that two randomly selected packs of Skittles candy are identical and…

Motivated by a problem in population genetics, we examine the combinatorics of dissimilarity for pairs of random unordered draws of multiple objects, with replacement, from a collection of distinct objects. Consider two draws of size $K$…

Models in which the number of goals scored by a team in a soccer match follow a Poisson distribution, or a closely related one, have been widely discussed. We here consider a soccer match as an experiment to assess which of two teams is…

Consider a finite set of sources, each producing i.i.d. observations that follow a unique probability distribution on a finite alphabet. We study the problem of matching a finite set of observed sequences to the set of sources under the…

We examine the extent to which random samplings from the values of a random set, determine the distribution of the random set itself. We also comment on how, given the statistics of the sampling, to detect the distribution. Several methods…

An algorithm for sampling exactly from the normal distribution is given. The algorithm reads some number of uniformly distributed random digits in a given base and generates an initial portion of the representation of a normal deviate in…

Given $n>0$, let $S\subset [0,1]^2$ be a set of $n$ points, chosen uniformly at random. Let $R\cup B$ be a random partition, or coloring, of $S$ in which each point of $S$ is included in $R$ uniformly at random with probability $1/2$.…

Suppose $n$ different pairs of socks are put in a tumble dryer. When the dryer is finished socks are taken out one by one, if a sock matches one of the socks on the sorting table both are removed, otherwise it is put on the table until its…

We consider a permutation method for testing whether observations given in their natural pairing exhibit an unusual level of similarity in situations where any two observations may be similar at some unknown baseline level. Under a null…

The two-sample problem, which consists in testing whether independent samples on $\mathbb{R}^d$ are drawn from the same (unknown) distribution, finds applications in many areas. Its study in high-dimension is the subject of much attention,…

We consider a simple model of imprecise comparisons: there exists some $\delta>0$ such that when a subject is given two elements to compare, if the values of those elements (as perceived by the subject) differ by at least $\delta$, then 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 number of applications require two-sample testing on ranked preference data. For instance, in crowdsourcing, there is a long-standing question of whether pairwise comparison data provided by people is distributed similar to…

We begin by reviewing some probabilistic results about the Dirichlet Process and its close relatives, focussing on their implications for statistical modelling and analysis. We then introduce a class of simple mixture models in which…

We introduce a new discrepancy score between two distributions that gives an indication on their similarity. While much research has been done to determine if two samples come from exactly the same distribution, much less research…

There are two methods for counting the number of occurrences of a string in another large string. One is to count the number of places where the string is found. The other is to determine how many pieces of string can be extracted without…

We study one of the key tools in data approximation and optimization: low-discrepancy colorings. Formally, given a finite set system $(X,\mathcal S)$, the \emph{discrepancy} of a two-coloring $\chi:X\to\{-1,1\}$ is defined as $\max_{S \in…