Related papers: A local approach to estimation in discrete logline…
Consider a set of categorical variables $\mathcal{P}$ where at least one, denoted by $Y$, is binary. The log-linear model that describes the counts in the resulting contingency table implies a specific logistic regression model, with the…
We propose a framework for computing, optimizing and integrating with respect to a smooth marginal likelihood in statistical models that involve high-dimensional parameters/latent variables and continuous low-dimensional hyperparameters.…
The empirical Bayes $g$-modeling approach via the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) is widely used for large-scale estimation and inference in the normal means problem, yet theoretical guarantees for uncertainty…
We consider the problem of estimating the parameter $\fnl$ in the standard local model of primordial CMB non-Gaussianity. We determine the properties of maximum likelihood (ML) estimates and show that the problem is not the typical ML…
Learning the parameters of graphical models using the maximum likelihood estimation is generally hard which requires an approximation. Maximum composite likelihood estimations are statistical approximations of the maximum likelihood…
We consider a semiparametric mixture of two univariate density functions where one of them is known while the weight and the other function are unknown. Such mixtures have a history of application to the problem of detecting differentially…
The hardcore model on a graph $G$ with parameter $\lambda>0$ is a probability measure on the collection of all independent sets of $G$, that assigns to each independent set $I$ a probability proportional to $\lambda^{|I|}$. In this paper we…
The log-concave maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) problem answers: for a set of points $X_1,...X_n \in \mathbb R^d$, which log-concave density maximizes their likelihood? We present a characterization of the log-concave MLE that leads to…
We study nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation for two classes of multivariate distributions that imply strong forms of positive dependence; namely log-supermodular (MTP$_2$) distributions and log-$L^\#$-concave (LLC) distributions.…
We study local asymptotic normality of M-estimates of convex minimization in an infinite dimensional parameter space. The objective function of M-estimates is not necessary differentiable and is possibly subject to convex constraints. In…
Modeling sparse data such as microbiome and transcriptomics (RNA-seq) data is very challenging due to the exceeded number of zeros and skewness of the distribution. Many probabilistic models have been used for modeling sparse data,…
Due to its heavy-tailed and fully parametric form, the multivariate generalized Gaussian distribution (MGGD) has been receiving much attention for modeling extreme events in signal and image processing applications. Considering the…
Anomaly estimation, or the problem of finding a subset of a dataset that differs from the rest of the dataset, is a classic problem in machine learning and data mining. In both theoretical work and in applications, the anomaly is assumed to…
We study the problem of computing the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of multivariate log-concave densities. Our main result is the first computationally efficient algorithm for this problem. In more detail, we give an algorithm that, on…
Estimating copulas with discrete marginal distributions is challenging, especially in high dimensions, because computing the likelihood contribution of each observation requires evaluating $2^{J}$ terms, with $J$ the number of discrete…
Finite mixture models are widely used in econometric analyses to capture unobserved heterogeneity. This paper shows that maximum likelihood estimation of finite mixtures of parametric densities can suffer from substantial finite-sample bias…
This paper develops a unified estimation framework, the Maximum Ideal Likelihood Estimation (MILE), for general parametric models with latent variables. Unlike traditional approaches relying on the marginal likelihood of the observed data,…
We characterize the existence of the maximum likelihood estimator for discrete exponential families. Our criterion is simple to apply as we show in various settings, most notably for exponential models of random graphs. As an application,…
We study the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator $\widehat{\pi}$ for Gaussian location mixtures in one dimension. It has been known since (Lindsay, 1983) that given an $n$-point dataset, this estimator always returns a mixture with…
We settle a conjecture by Bik and Marigliano stating that the degree of a one-dimensional discrete model with rational maximum likelihood estimator is bounded above by a linear function in the size of its support, therefore showing that…