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Related papers: Testing Identity of Structured Distributions

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Distribution testing can be described as follows: $q$ samples are being drawn from some unknown distribution $P$ over a known domain $[n]$. After the sampling process, a decision must be made about whether $P$ holds some property, or is far…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2020-12-04 Uri Meir

In this work, we revisit the problem of uniformity testing of discrete probability distributions. A fundamental problem in distribution testing, testing uniformity over a known domain has been addressed over a significant line of works, and…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-08-17 Tuğkan Batu , Clément L. Canonne

Uniformity testing and the more general identity testing are well studied problems in distributional property testing. Most previous work focuses on testing under $L_1$-distance. However, when the support is very large or even continuous,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-10-31 Shichuan Deng , Wenzheng Li , Xuan Wu

We consider the problem of testing distribution identity. Given a sequence of independent samples from an unknown distribution on a domain of size n, the goal is to check if the unknown distribution approximately equals a known distribution…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2009-10-20 Krzysztof Onak

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 study quantum algorithms for verifying properties of the output probability distribution of a classical or quantum circuit, given access to the source code that generates the distribution. We consider the basic task of uniformity…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-11-08 Clément L. Canonne , Robin Kothari , Ryan O'Donnell

Given a discrete-valued sample $X_1,...,X_n$ we wish to decide whether it was generated by a distribution belonging to a family $H_0$, or it was generated by a distribution belonging to a family $H_1$. In this work we assume that all…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2014-12-30 Daniil Ryabko

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

We consider the problem of closeness testing for two discrete distributions in the practically relevant setting of \emph{unequal} sized samples drawn from each of them. Specifically, given a target error parameter $\varepsilon > 0$, $m_1$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-04-20 Bhaswar B. Bhattacharya , Gregory Valiant

Hypothesis testing plays a central role in statistical inference, and is used in many settings where privacy concerns are paramount. This work answers a basic question about privately testing simple hypotheses: given two distributions $P$…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-04-04 Clément L. Canonne , Gautam Kamath , Audra McMillan , Adam Smith , Jonathan Ullman

A nonparametric anomalous hypothesis testing problem is investigated, in which there are totally n sequences with s anomalous sequences to be detected. Each typical sequence contains m independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-12-15 Shaofeng Zou , Yingbin Liang , H. Vincent Poor , Xinghua Shi

A Poisson Binomial distribution over $n$ variables is the distribution of the sum of $n$ independent Bernoullis. We provide a sample near-optimal algorithm for testing whether a distribution $P$ supported on $\{0,...,n\}$ to which we have…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2014-10-15 Jayadev Acharya , Constantinos Daskalakis

We investigate the problem of testing whether a discrete probability distribution over an ordered domain is a histogram on a specified number of bins. One of the most common tools for the succinct approximation of data, $k$-histograms over…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-07-15 Clément L. Canonne , Ilias Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Sihan Liu

In this work we present novel differentially private identity (goodness-of-fit) testers for natural and widely studied classes of multivariate product distributions: Gaussians in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with known covariance and product…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-03-07 Clément L. Canonne , Gautam Kamath , Audra McMillan , Jonathan Ullman , Lydia Zakynthinou

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

The classic problems of testing uniformity of and learning a discrete distribution, given access to independent samples from it, are examined under general $\ell_p$ metrics. The intuitions and results often contrast with the classic…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-03-24 Bo Waggoner

One of the most fundamental problems in distribution testing is the identity testing problem: given samples $x_1,\ldots,x_s$, the goal is to determine whether the samples are drawn from a target distribution $\mathcal{D}$. When…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-15 Bruno Cavalar , Eli Goldin , Matthew Gray , Taiga Hiroka , Min-Hsiu Hsieh , Tomoyuki Morimae

Determining whether an unknown distribution matches a known reference is a cornerstone problem in distributional analysis. While classical results establish a rigorous framework in the case of distributions over finite domains, real-world…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-08-07 Smayan Agarwal , Shobhit Singh , Aalok Thakkar

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

We study the following distribution clustering problem: Given a hidden partition of $k$ distributions into two groups, such that the distributions within each group are the same, and the two distributions associated with the two clusters…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-12-10 Gunjan Kumar , Yash Pote , Jonathan Scarlett