Related papers: Optimal Testing for Properties of Distributions
This paper considers the problem of testing the maximum in-degree of the Bayes net underlying an unknown probability distribution $P$ over $\{0,1\}^n$, given sample access to $P$. We show that the sample complexity of the problem is…
We provide a differentially private algorithm for hypothesis selection. Given samples from an unknown probability distribution $P$ and a set of $m$ probability distributions $\mathcal{H}$, the goal is to output, in a…
Let $p$ be an unknown and arbitrary probability distribution over $[0,1)$. We consider the problem of {\em density estimation}, in which a learning algorithm is given i.i.d. draws from $p$ and must (with high probability) output a…
Given samples from two non-negative random variables, we propose a family of tests for the null hypothesis that one random variable stochastically dominates the other at the second order. Test statistics are obtained as functionals of the…
We study the problems of identity and closeness testing of $n$-dimensional product distributions. Prior works by Canonne, Diakonikolas, Kane and Stewart (COLT 2017) and Daskalakis and Pan (COLT 2017) have established tight sample complexity…
In this paper we propose a Bayesian answer to testing problems when the hypotheses are not well separated. The idea of the method is to study the posterior distribution of a discrepancy measure between the parameter and the model we want to…
This paper addresses a fundamental problem in random variate generation: given access to a random source that emits a stream of independent fair bits, what is the most accurate and entropy-efficient algorithm for sampling from a discrete…
A test of the concavity of a distribution function with support contained in the unit interval may be based on a statistic constructed from the $L^p$-norm of the difference between an empirical distribution function and its least concave…
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…
Let $\theta_0,\theta_1 \in \mathbb{R}^d$ be the population risk minimizers associated to some loss $\ell:\mathbb{R}^d\times \mathcal{Z}\to\mathbb{R}$ and two distributions $\mathbb{P}_0,\mathbb{P}_1$ on $\mathcal{Z}$. The models…
A novel, non-trivial, probabilistic upper bound on the entropy of an unknown one-dimensional distribution, given the support of the distribution and a sample from that distribution, is presented. No knowledge beyond the support of the…
We initiate an investigation of private sampling from distributions. Given a dataset with $n$ independent observations from an unknown distribution $P$, a sampling algorithm must output a single observation from a distribution that is close…
What advantage do \emph{sequential} procedures provide over batch algorithms for testing properties of unknown distributions? Focusing on the problem of testing whether two distributions $\mathcal{D}_1$ and $\mathcal{D}_2$ on $\{1,\dots,…
We develop a new technique for proving distribution testing lower bounds for properties defined by inequalities involving the bin probabilities of the distribution in question. Using this technique we obtain new lower bounds for…
Equivalence testing, a fundamental problem in the field of distribution testing, seeks to infer if two unknown distributions on $[n]$ are the same or far apart in the total variation distance. Conditional sampling has emerged as a powerful…
A striking result of [Acharya et al. 2017] showed that to estimate symmetric properties of discrete distributions, plugging in the distribution that maximizes the likelihood of observed multiset of frequencies, also known as the profile…
We study goodness-of-fit of discrete distributions in the distributed setting, where samples are divided between multiple users who can only release a limited amount of information about their samples due to various information constraints.…
Uniformity testing is arguably one of the most fundamental distribution testing problems. Given sample access to an unknown distribution $\mathbf{p}$ on $[n]$, one must decide if $\mathbf{p}$ is uniform or $\varepsilon$-far from uniform (in…
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 $P$…
We give a highly efficient "semi-agnostic" algorithm for learning univariate probability distributions that are well approximated by piecewise polynomial density functions. Let $p$ be an arbitrary distribution over an interval $I$ which is…