Related papers: Optimal Algorithms and Lower Bounds for Testing Cl…
A $k$-modal probability distribution over the discrete domain $\{1,...,n\}$ is one whose histogram has at most $k$ "peaks" and "valleys." Such distributions are natural generalizations of monotone ($k=0$) and unimodal ($k=1$) probability…
We study the impact of quantum computation on the fundamental problem of testing the property of distributions. In particular, we focus on testing whether two unknown classical distributions are close or far enough, and propose the…
We study three fundamental statistical-learning problems: distribution estimation, property estimation, and property testing. We establish the profile maximum likelihood (PML) estimator as the first unified sample-optimal approach to a wide…
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…
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…
We study the problem of closeness testing for continuous distributions and its implications for causal discovery. Specifically, we analyze the sample complexity of distinguishing whether two multidimensional continuous distributions are…
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…
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…
The $k$-of-$n$ testing problem involves performing $n$ independent tests sequentially, in order to determine whether/not at least $k$ tests pass. The objective is to minimize the expected cost of testing. This is a fundamental and…
We study the problem of generalized uniformity testing \cite{BC17} of a discrete probability distribution: Given samples from a probability distribution $p$ over an {\em unknown} discrete domain $\mathbf{\Omega}$, we want to distinguish,…
We design a new, fast algorithm for agnostically learning univariate probability distributions whose densities are well approximated by piecewise polynomial functions. Let $f$ be the density function of an arbitrary univariate distribution,…
We provide an algorithm for properly learning mixtures of two single-dimensional Gaussians without any separability assumptions. Given $\tilde{O}(1/\varepsilon^2)$ samples from an unknown mixture, our algorithm outputs a mixture that is…
We investigate distribution testing with access to non-adaptive conditional samples. In the conditional sampling model, the algorithm is given the following access to a distribution: it submits a query set $S$ to an oracle, which returns a…
We study the problem of testing identity against a given distribution with a focus on the high confidence regime. More precisely, given samples from an unknown distribution $p$ over $n$ elements, an explicitly given distribution $q$, and…
This paper studies the sample complexity of searching over multiple populations. We consider a large number of populations, each corresponding to either distribution P0 or P1. The goal of the search problem studied here is to find one…
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…
Are two sets of observations drawn from the same distribution? This problem is a two-sample test. Kernel methods lead to many appealing properties. Indeed state-of-the-art approaches use the $L^2$ distance between kernel-based distribution…
There has been considerable recent interest in distribution-tests whose run-time and sample requirements are sublinear in the domain-size $k$. We study two of the most important tests under the conditional-sampling model where each query…
We consider the problem of estimating the $L_1$ distance between two discrete probability measures $P$ and $Q$ from empirical data in a nonasymptotic and large alphabet setting. When $Q$ is known and one obtains $n$ samples from $P$, we…
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…