Related papers: Estimation of KL Divergence: Optimal Minimax Rate
We study the problem of discrete distribution estimation in KL divergence and provide concentration bounds for the Laplace estimator. We show that the deviation from mean scales as $\sqrt{k}/n$ when $n \ge k$, improving upon the best prior…
This paper proposes a new family of lower and upper bounds on the minimum mean squared error (MMSE). The key idea is to minimize/maximize the MMSE subject to the constraint that the joint distribution of the input-output statistics lies in…
Several scalable sample-based methods to compute the Kullback Leibler (KL) divergence between two distributions have been proposed and applied in large-scale machine learning models. While they have been found to be unstable, the…
We consider the problem of estimating the support size of a discrete distribution whose minimum non-zero mass is at least $ \frac{1}{k}$. Under the independent sampling model, we show that the sample complexity, i.e., the minimal sample…
We study density estimation in Kullback-Leibler divergence: given an i.i.d. sample from an unknown density $p^\star$, the goal is to construct an estimator $\widehat{p}$ such that $\mathrm{KL}(p^\star,\widehat{p})$ is small with high…
This short note is on a property of the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence which indicates that independent Gaussian distributions minimize the KL divergence from given independent Gaussian distributions. The primary purpose of this note is…
The problem of estimating an unknown discrete distribution from its samples is a fundamental tenet of statistical learning. Over the past decade, it attracted significant research effort and has been solved for a variety of divergence…
Estimating the Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence between language models has many applications, e.g., reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), interpretability, and knowledge distillation. However, computing the exact KL…
Accelerated algorithms for maximum likelihood image reconstruction are essential for emerging applications such as 3D tomography, dynamic tomographic imaging, and other high dimensional inverse problems. In this paper, we introduce and…
For a regression model, we consider the risk of the maximum likelihood estimator with respect to $\alpha$-divergence, which includes the special cases of Kullback-Leibler divergence, Hellinger distance and $\chi^2$ divergence. The…
The forward Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is a ubiquitous objective for fitting a parameterized distribution to samples due to its tractability and equivalence to maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). Its inherent asymmetry, however, may…
We study the problem of estimating the joint probability mass function (pmf) over two random variables. In particular, the estimation is based on the observation of $m$ samples containing both variables and $n$ samples missing one fixed…
The Pinsker inequality lower bounds the Kullback--Leibler divergence $D_{\textrm{KL}}$ in terms of total variation and provides a canonical way to convert $D_{\textrm{KL}}$ control into $\lVert \cdot \rVert_1$-control. Motivated by…
Maximizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) is a fundamental problem in waveform design for active sensing and hypothesis testing, as it directly relates to the error exponent of detection probability. However, the associated…
We develop a fully non-parametric, easy-to-use, and powerful test for the missing completely at random (MCAR) assumption on the missingness mechanism of a dataset. The test compares distributions of different missing patterns on random…
We study the gradient flow for a relaxed approximation to the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between a moving source and a fixed target distribution. This approximation, termed the KALE (KL approximate lower-bound estimator), solves a…
Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence is a fundamental measure of the dissimilarity between two probability distributions, but it can become unstable in high-dimensional settings due to its sensitivity to mismatches in distributional support.…
This paper proposes a distributionally robust unit commitment approach for microgrids under net load and electricity market price uncertainty. The key thrust of the proposed approach is to leverage the Kullback-Leibler divergence to…
Estimating the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between two distributions given samples from them is well-studied in machine learning and information theory. Motivated by considerations of multi-group fairness, we seek KL divergence…
We study the worst-case probability that $Y$ outperforms a benchmark $X$ when the law of $Y$ lies in a Kullback-Leibler neighbourhood of the benchmark. The max-min problem over couplings admits a tractable dual (via optimal transport),…