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Related papers: Optimal Testing for Properties of Distributions

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We investigate the problem of identity testing for multidimensional histogram distributions. A distribution $p: D \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$, where $D \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$, is called a $k$-histogram if there exists a partition of the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-02-20 Ilias Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , John Peebles

In many fairness and distribution robustness problems, one has access to labeled data from multiple source distributions yet the test data may come from an arbitrary member or a mixture of them. We study the problem of constructing a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-07 Yuqi Yang , Ying Jin

The objective of goodness-of-fit testing is to assess whether a dataset of observations is likely to have been drawn from a candidate probability distribution. This paper presents a rank-based family of goodness-of-fit tests that is…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-04-18 Feras A. Saad , Cameron E. Freer , Nathanael L. Ackerman , Vikash K. Mansinghka

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

In the hypothesis selection problem, we are given sample and query access to finite set of candidate distributions (hypotheses), $\mathcal{H} = \{H_1, \ldots, H_n\}$, and samples from an unknown distribution $P$, both over a domain…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Anders Aamand , Maryam Aliakbarpour , Justin Y. Chen , Sandeep Silwal

We study the fundamental problems of (i) uniformity testing of a discrete distribution, and (ii) closeness testing between two discrete distributions with bounded $\ell_2$-norm. These problems have been extensively studied in distribution…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2016-11-14 Ilias Diakonikolas , Themis Gouleakis , John Peebles , Eric Price

We present an algorithm for testing halfspaces over arbitrary, unknown rotation-invariant distributions. Using $\tilde O(\sqrt{n}\epsilon^{-7})$ random examples of an unknown function $f$, the algorithm determines with high probability…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-11-02 Nathaniel Harms

A family of consistent tests, derived from a characterization of the probability generating function, is proposed for assessing Poissonity against a wide class of count distributions, which includes some of the most frequently adopted…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-06-11 Antonio Di Noia , Marzia Marcheselli , Caterina Pisani , Luca Pratelli

Distribution testing deals with what information can be deduced about an unknown distribution over $\{1,\ldots,n\}$, where the algorithm is only allowed to obtain a relatively small number of independent samples from the distribution. In…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2016-09-23 Eldar Fischer , Oded Lachish , Yadu Vasudev

We study distribution testing in the standard access model and the conditional access model when the memory available to the testing algorithm is bounded. In both scenarios, the samples appear in an online fashion and the goal is to test…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-09-08 Sampriti Roy , Yadu Vasudev

Sampling from various kinds of distributions is an issue of paramount importance in statistics since it is often the key ingredient for constructing estimators, test procedures or confidence intervals. In many situations, the exact sampling…

Computation · Statistics 2016-12-06 Arnak S. Dalalyan

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

Computing the similarity between two probability distributions is a recurring theme across control. We introduce a unified family of distances between the probability distributions of two random variables that is based on the discrepancy…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-03 Alexandros E. Tzikas , Arec Jamgochian , Nazim Kemal Ure , Mykel J. Kochenderfer , Stephen P. Boyd

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 Wasserstein distance has emerged as a key metric to quantify distances between probability distributions, with applications in various fields, including machine learning, control theory, decision theory, and biological systems.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Eduardo Figueiredo , Steven Adams , Luca Laurenti

When deploying a trained machine learning model in the real world, it is inevitable to receive inputs from out-of-distribution (OOD) sources. For instance, in continual learning settings, it is common to encounter OOD samples due to the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Chuanwen Feng , Wenlong Chen , Ao Ke , Yilong Ren , Xike Xie , S. Kevin Zhou

Randomized algorithms depend on accurate sampling from probability distributions, as their correctness and performance hinge on the quality of the generated samples. However, even for common distributions like Binomial, exact sampling is…

Computation · Statistics 2025-06-17 Uddalok Sarkar , Sourav Chakraborty , Kuldeep S. Meel

We investigate Learning from Label Proportions (LLP), a partial information setting where examples in a training set are grouped into bags, and only aggregate label values in each bag are available. Despite the partial observability, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-02 Robert Busa-Fekete , Travis Dick , Claudio Gentile , Haim Kaplan , Tomer Koren , Uri Stemmer

Motivated by real-world machine learning applications, we analyze approximations to the non-asymptotic fundamental limits of statistical classification. In the binary version of this problem, given two training sequences generated according…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2018-12-07 Lin Zhou , Vincent Y. F. Tan , Mehul Motani

We provide improved differentially private algorithms for identity testing of high-dimensional distributions. Specifically, for $d$-dimensional Gaussian distributions with known covariance $\Sigma$, we can test whether the distribution…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-07-26 Shyam Narayanan