Related papers: Refined total variation bounds in the multivariate…
Let $S_n=I_1+\cdots+I_n$ be a sum of independent indicators $I_i$, with $p_i=\Pr(I_i=1)=1-\Pr(I_i=0)$, $i=1,\ldots,n$. It is well-known that the total variation distance between $S_n$ and $Z_\lambda$, where $Z_\lambda$ has a Poisson…
The Poisson model is frequently employed to describe count data, but in a Bayesian context it leads to an analytically intractable posterior probability distribution. In this work, we analyze a variational Gaussian approximation to the…
We use the Stein-Chen method to prove new explicit inequalities for the total variation, Wasserstein and local distances between the distribution of a random diagonal sum of a Bernoulli matrix and a Poisson distribution. Approximation…
We establish a general inequality on the Poisson space, yielding an upper bound for the distance in total variation between the law of a regular random variable with values in the integers and a Poisson distribution. Several applications…
An important tool to quantify the likeness of two probability measures are f-divergences, which have seen widespread application in statistics and information theory. An example is the total variation, which plays an exceptional role among…
It is shown that the method of exchangeable pairs introduced by Stein [Approximate Computation of Expectations (1986) IMS, Hayward, CA] for normal approximation can effectively be used for translated Poisson approximation. Introducing an…
One aspect of Poisson approximation is that the support of the random variable of interest is often finite while the support of the Poisson distribution is not. In this paper we will remedy this by examining truncated negative binomial (of…
Counting experiments often rely on Monte Carlo simulations for predictions of Poisson expectations. The accompanying uncertainty from the finite Monte Carlo sample size can be incorporated into parameter estimation by modifying the Poisson…
Tight bounds for several symmetric divergence measures are derived in terms of the total variation distance. It is shown that each of these bounds is attained by a pair of 2 or 3-element probability distributions. An application of these…
Using coupling techniques based on Stein's method for probability approximation, we revisit classical variance bounding inequalities of Chernoff, Cacoullos, Chen and Klaassen. Taking advantage of modern coupling techniques allows us to…
Tight bounds for several symmetric divergence measures are introduced, given in terms of the total variation distance. Each of these bounds is attained by a pair of 2 or 3-element probability distributions. An application of these bounds…
We provide a general result for bounding the difference between point probabilities of integer supported distributions and the translated Poisson distribution, a convenient alternative to the discretized normal. We illustrate our theorem in…
An information-theoretic development is given for the problem of compound Poisson approximation, which parallels earlier treatments for Gaussian and Poisson approximation. Let $P_{S_n}$ be the distribution of a sum $S_n=\Sumn Y_i$ of…
By exploiting the well-known observation that size-biasing or zero-biasing an infinitely divisible random variable may be achieved by adding an independent increment, combined with tools from Stein's method for compound Poisson and Gaussian…
Several classical results on boundary crossing probabilities of Brownian motion and random walks are extended to asymptotically Gaussian random fields, which include sums of i.i.d. random variables with multidimensional indices,…
Variational inference has become an increasingly attractive fast alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for approximate Bayesian inference. However, a major obstacle to the widespread use of variational methods is the lack of…
The paper is concerned with approximating the distribution of a sum W of n integer valued random variables Y_i, whose distributions depend on the state of an underlying Markov chain X. The approximation is in terms of a translated Poisson…
In this paper we study approximations for boundary crossing probabilities for the moving sums of i.i.d. normal random variables. We propose approximating a discrete time problem with a continuous time problem allowing us to apply developed…
For integer valued random variables, the translated Poisson distributions form a flexible family for approximation in total variation, in much the same way that the normal family is used for approximation in Kolmogorov distance. Using the…
Multivariate Poisson processes have many important applications in Insurance, Finance, and many other areas of Applied Probability. In this paper we study the backward simulation approach to modelling multivariate Poisson processes and…