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In scientific applications, there often are several competing models that could be fit to the observed data, so quantification of the model uncertainty is of fundamental importance. In this paper, we develop an inferential model (IM)…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-06-07 Ryan Martin , Huiping Xu , Zuoyi Zhang , Chuanhai Liu

Inferential models (IMs) represent a novel possibilistic approach for achieving provably valid statistical inference. This paper introduces a general framework for fusing independent IMs in a "black-box" manner, requiring no knowledge of…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-05-14 Leonardo Cella

Inferential models (IMs) are data-dependent, imprecise-probabilistic structures designed to quantify uncertainty about unknowns. As the name suggests, the focus has been on uncertainty quantification for inference and on its reliability…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-05-01 Ryan Martin , Shih-Ni Prim , Jonathan Williams

The framework of Inferential Models (IMs) has recently been developed in search of what is referred to as the holy grail of statistical theory, that is, prior-free probabilistic inference. Its method of Conditional IMs (CIMs) is a critical…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-01-13 Rongrong Zhang , Michael Y. Zhu , Chuanhai Liu

A robust prediction model invoking the Takens embedding theorem, whose \textit{working hypothesis} is obtained via an inference procedure based on the minimum Fisher information principle, is presented. The coefficients of the ansatz,…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-04-26 R. C. Venkatesan , A. Plastino

Bayesian, frequentist and fiducial (BFF) inferences are much more congruous than they have been perceived historically in the scientific community (cf., Reid and Cox 2015; Kass 2011; Efron 1998). Most practitioners are probably more…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-06-17 Suzanne Thornton , Minge Xie

Likelihood-free inference refers to inference when a likelihood function cannot be explicitly evaluated, which is often the case for models based on simulators. Most of the literature is based on sample-based `Approximate Bayesian…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-11-22 Conor Durkan , George Papamakarios , Iain Murray

A crucial step in fitting a regression model to data is determining the model's structure, i.e., the subset of explanatory variables to be included. However, the uncertainty in this step is often overlooked due to a lack of satisfactory…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-11-13 Ryan Martin , Naomi Singer , Jonathan Williams

Conformal prediction (CP) was developed to provide finite-sample probabilistic prediction guarantees. While CP algorithms are a relatively general-purpose approach to uncertainty quantification, with finite-sample guarantees, they lack…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-08 Jonathan P Williams

Existing frameworks for probabilistic inference assume the quantity of interest is the parameter of a posited statistical model. In machine learning applications, however, often there is no statistical model/parameter; the quantity of…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-11-22 Leonardo Cella , Ryan Martin

A fundamental class of inferential problems are those characterised by there having been a substantial degree of pre-data (or prior) belief that the value of a model parameter was equal or lay close to a specified value, which may, for…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2021-01-26 Russell J. Bowater

It is shown that the fiducial distribution in a group model, or more generally a quasigroup model, determines the optimal equivariant frequentist inference procedures. The proof does not rely on existence of invariant measures, and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-04-09 Gunnar Taraldsen , Bo Henry Lindqvist

The Fisher information matrix (FIM) is a foundational concept in statistical signal processing. The FIM depends on the probability distribution, assumed to belong to a smooth parametric family. Traditional approaches to estimating the FIM…

Computation · Statistics 2015-06-22 Visar Berisha , Alfred O. Hero

The inferential model (IM) approach, like fiducial and its generalizations, depends on a representation of the data-generating process. Here, a particular variation on the IM construction is considered, one based on generalized…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-07-01 Ryan Martin

Confidence is a fundamental concept in statistics, but there is a tendency to misinterpret it as probability. In this paper, I argue that an intuitively and mathematically more appropriate interpretation of confidence is through…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2017-07-04 Ryan Martin

For binary experimental data, we discuss randomization-based inferential procedures that do not need to invoke any modeling assumptions. We also introduce methods for likelihood and Bayesian inference based solely on the physical…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-05-25 Peng Ding , Luke W. Miratrix

This paper considers an empirical likelihood inference for parameters defined by general estimating equations, when data are missing at random. The efficiency of existing estimators depends critically on correctly specifying the conditional…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-12-06 Tianqing Liu , Xiaohui Yuan , Zhaohai Li , Aiyi Liu

Sparsity in a regression context makes the model itself an object of interest, pointing to a confidence set of models as the appropriate presentation of evidence. A difficulty in areas such as genomics, where the number of candidate…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-24 Heather Battey , Daniel Garcia Rasines , Yanbo Tang

Approximate Bayesian computing is a powerful likelihood-free method that has grown increasingly popular since early applications in population genetics. However, complications arise in the theoretical justification for Bayesian inference…

Computation · Statistics 2018-12-03 Suzanne Thornton , Wentao Li , Min-ge Xie

Maximum likelihood estimates and corresponding confidence regions of the estimates are commonly used in statistical inference. In practice, people often construct approximate confidence regions with the Fisher information at given sample…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-07-13 Sihang Jiang