English
Related papers

Related papers: Which Distribution Distances are Sublinearly Testa…

200 papers

We study the general problem of testing whether an unknown distribution belongs to a specified family of distributions. More specifically, given a distribution family $\mathcal{P}$ and sample access to an unknown discrete distribution…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-08-09 Clément L. Canonne , Ilias Diakonikolas , Alistair Stewart

In the framework of semiparametric distribution regression, we consider the problem of comparing the conditional distribution functions corresponding to two samples. In contrast to testing for exact equality, we are interested in the (null)…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-06-12 Holger Dette , Kathrin Möllenhoff , Dominik Wied

We propose a simple robust hypothesis test that has the same sample complexity as that of the optimal Neyman-Pearson test up to constants, but robust to distribution perturbations under Hellinger distance. We discuss the applicability of…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-11-04 Ananda Theertha Suresh

We consider the identity testing problem - or goodness-of-fit testing problem - in multivariate binomial families, multivariate Poisson families and multinomial distributions. Given a known distribution $p$ and $n$ iid samples drawn from an…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-04-26 J. Chhor , A. Carpentier

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 initiate a systematic investigation of distribution testing in the framework of algorithmic replicability. Specifically, given independent samples from a collection of probability distributions, the goal is to characterize the sample…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-04 Ilias Diakonikolas , Jingyi Gao , Daniel Kane , Sihan Liu , Christopher Ye

The statistics and machine learning communities have recently seen a growing interest in classification-based approaches to two-sample testing. The outcome of a classification-based two-sample test remains a rejection decision, which is not…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-11-15 Loris Michel , Jeffrey Näf , Nicolai Meinshausen

We consider the problem of closeness testing for two discrete distributions in the practically relevant setting of \emph{unequal} sized samples drawn from each of them. Specifically, given a target error parameter $\varepsilon > 0$, $m_1$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-04-20 Bhaswar B. Bhattacharya , Gregory Valiant

We study the following distribution clustering problem: Given a hidden partition of $k$ distributions into two groups, such that the distributions within each group are the same, and the two distributions associated with the two clusters…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-12-10 Gunjan Kumar , Yash Pote , Jonathan Scarlett

Two-sample testing, where we aim to determine whether two distributions are equal or not equal based on samples from each one, is challenging if we cannot place assumptions on the properties of the two distributions. In particular,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-13 Rohan Hore , Rina Foygel Barber

We initiate a study of a new model of property testing that is a hybrid of testing properties of distributions and testing properties of strings. Specifically, the new model refers to testing properties of distributions, but these are…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Oded Goldreich , Dana Ron

We study the problem of testing \emph{conditional independence} for discrete distributions. Specifically, given samples from a discrete random variable $(X, Y, Z)$ on domain $[\ell_1]\times[\ell_2] \times [n]$, we want to distinguish, with…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-07-03 Clément L. Canonne , Ilias Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Alistair Stewart

Testing for the equality of two high-dimensional distributions is a challenging problem, and this becomes even more challenging when the sample size is small. Over the last few decades, several graph-based two-sample tests have been…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-11-22 Soham Sarkar , Rahul Biswas , Anil K. Ghosh

If the probability distribution model aims to approximate the hidden mother distribution, it is imperative to establish a useful criterion for the resemblance between the mother and the model distributions. This study proposes a criterion…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-11-13 Yo Sheena

We study the fundamental problems of identity testing (goodness of fit), and closeness testing (two sample test) of distributions over $k$ elements, under differential privacy. While the problems have a long history in statistics, finite…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-01 Jayadev Acharya , Ziteng Sun , Huanyu Zhang

We are interested in testing properties of distributions with systematically mislabeled samples. Our goal is to make decisions about unknown probability distributions, using a sample that has been collected by a confused collector, such as…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-11-27 Renato Ferreira Pinto , Nathaniel Harms

Distribution testing can be described as follows: $q$ samples are being drawn from some unknown distribution $P$ over a known domain $[n]$. After the sampling process, a decision must be made about whether $P$ holds some property, or is far…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2020-12-04 Uri Meir

Testing to see whether a given data set comes from some specified distribution is among the oldest types of problems in Statistics. Many such tests have been developed and their performance studied. The general result has been that while a…

Applications · Statistics 2020-12-07 Wolfgang Rolke

$f$-divergences, which quantify discrepancy between probability distributions, are ubiquitous in information theory, machine learning, and statistics. While there are numerous methods for estimating $f$-divergences from data, a limit…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-10-13 Sreejith Sreekumar , Ziv Goldfeld , Kengo Kato

Universal hypothesis testing refers to the problem of deciding whether samples come from a nominal distribution or an unknown distribution that is different from the nominal distribution. Hoeffding's test, whose test statistic is equivalent…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-11-15 Pengfei Yang , Biao Chen