Related papers: Best finite approximations of Benford's Law
This paper studies best finitely supported approximations of one-dimensional probability measures with respect to the $L^r$-Kantorovich (or transport) distance, where either the locations or the weights of the approximations' atoms are…
For arbitrary Borel probability measures on the real line, necessary and sufficient conditions are presented that characterize best purely atomic approximations relative to the classical Levy probability metric, given any number of atoms,…
We provide an algorithm to approximate a finitely supported discrete measure $\mu$ by a measure $\nu_{N}$ corresponding to a set of $N$ points so that the total variation between $\mu$ and $\nu_N$ has an upper bound. As a consequence if…
We derive new explicit bounds for the total variation distance between two convolution products of $n$ probability distributions, one of which having identical convolution factors. Approximations by finite signed measures of arbitrary order…
Benford's law states that for many random variables X > 0 its leading digit D = D(X) satisfies approximately the equation P(D = d) = log_{10}(1 + 1/d) for d = 1,2,...,9. This phenomenon follows from another, maybe more intuitive fact,…
Constrained quantization for a Borel probability measure refers to the idea of estimating a given probability by a discrete probability with a finite number of supporting points lying on a specific set. The specific set is known as the…
This article provides a concise overview of the main mathematical theory of Benford's law in a form accessible to scientists and students who have had first courses in calculus and probability. In particular, one of the main objectives here…
We develop a maximum relative entropy formalism to generate optimal approximations to probability distributions. The central results consist in (a) justifying the use of relative entropy as the uniquely natural criterion to select a…
The main aim of this work is to compare two Borel measures thorough their moment matrices using a new notion of smallest and largest generalized eigenvalues. With this approach we provide information in problems as the localization of the…
In this paper, we introduce and develop the concept of conditional quantization for Borel probability measures on $\mathbb{R}^k,$ considering both constrained and unconstrained frameworks. For each setting, we define the associated…
We show the leading digits of a variety of systems satisfying certain conditions follow Benford's Law. For each system proving this involves two main ingredients. One is a structure theorem of the limiting distribution, specific to the…
The fundamental result of Li, Long, and Srinivasan on approximations of set systems has become a key tool across several communities such as learning theory, algorithms, computational geometry, combinatorics and data analysis. The goal of…
We found that in transition arrays of complex atomic spectra, the strengths of electric-dipolar lines obey Benford's law, which means that their significant digits follow a logarithmic distribution favoring the smallest values. This…
We present novel bounds for estimating discrete probability distributions under the $\ell_\infty$ norm. These are nearly optimal in various precise senses, including a kind of instance-optimality. Our data-dependent convergence guarantees…
In this paper, we will see that the proportion of d as leading digit, d $\in$ 1, 9, in data (obtained thanks to the hereunder developed model) is more likely to follow a law whose probability distribution is determined by a specific upper…
We study measurable dependence of measures on a parameter in the following two classical problems: constructing conditional measures and the Kantorovich optimal transportation. We obtain broad sufficient conditions for the existence of…
The probability that a number in many naturally occurring tables of numerical data has first significant digit $d$ is predicted by Benford's Law ${\rm Prob} (d) = \log_{10} (1 + {\displaystyle{1\over d}}), d = 1, 2 >..., 9$. Illustrations…
The quantization scheme in probability theory deals with finding a best approximation of a given probability distribution by a probability distribution that is supported on finitely many points. Let $P$ be a Borel probability measure on…
We prove an analogue of the portmanteau theorem on weak convergence of probability measures allowing measures which are unbounded on an underlying metric space but finite on the complement of any Borel neighbourhood of a fixed element.
The study of finite approximations of probability measures has a long history. In (Xu and Berger, 2017), the authors focus on constrained finite approximations and, in particular, uniform ones in dimension $d=1$. The present paper gives an…