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When the initial and transition probabilities of a finite Markov chain in discrete time are not well known, we should perform a sensitivity analysis. This is done by considering as basic uncertainty models the so-called credal sets that…
We prove several results concerning classifications, based on successive observations $(X_1,..., X_n)$ of an unknown stationary and ergodic process, for membership in a given class of processes, such as the class of all finite order Markov…
Stationary ergodic processes with finite alphabets are estimated by finite memory processes from a sample, an n-length realization of the process, where the memory depth of the estimator process is also estimated from the sample using…
A fundamental algorithm for selecting ranks from a finite subset of an ordered set is Radix Selection. This algorithm requires the data to be given as strings of symbols over an ordered alphabet, e.g., binary expansions of real numbers. Its…
The aim of this note is to present an elementary proof of a variation of Harris' ergodic theorem of Markov chains. This theorem, dating back to the fifties essentially states that a Markov chain is uniquely ergodic if it admits a ``small''…
In this paper it is proved that if a minimal system has the property that its sequence entropy is uniformly bounded for all sequences, then it has only finitely many ergodic measures and is an almost finite to one extension of its maximal…
Despite the ubiquity of U-statistics in modern Probability and Statistics, their non-asymptotic analysis in a dependent framework may have been overlooked. In a recent work, a new concentration inequality for U-statistics of order two for…
By proving a local limit theorem for higher-order transitions, we determine the time required for necklace chains to be close to stationarity. Because necklace chains, built by arranging identical smaller chains around a directed cycle, are…
A rescaled Markov chain converges uniformly in probability to the solution of an ordinary differential equation, under carefully specified assumptions. The presentation is much simpler than those in the outside literature. The result may be…
Markov chain Monte Carlo is a method of producing a correlated sample in order to estimate features of a target distribution via ergodic averages. A fundamental question is when should sampling stop? That is, when are the ergodic averages…
For a Markov chain $Y$ with values in a Polish space, consider the entrance chain, obtained by sampling $Y$ at the moments when it enters a fixed set $A$ from its complement $A^c$. Similarly, consider the exit chain, obtained by sampling…
The spectral gap $\gamma$ of a finite, ergodic, and reversible Markov chain is an important parameter measuring the asymptotic rate of convergence. In applications, the transition matrix $P$ may be unknown, yet one sample of the chain up to…
Markov decision processes model systems subject to nondeterministic and probabilistic uncertainty. A plethora of verification techniques addresses variations of reachability properties, such as: Is there a scheduler resolving the…
Consider a parametrized family of general hidden Markov models, where both the observed and unobserved components take values in a complete separable metric space. We prove that the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the parameter is…
For discrete-time Markov chains on general state spaces, we establish criteria for non-ergodicity and non-strong ergodicity, and derive sufficient conditions for non-geometric ergodicity via the theory of minimal nonnegative solutions. Our…
We study the problem of learning the transition matrices of a set of Markov chains from a single stream of observations on each chain. We assume that the Markov chains are ergodic but otherwise unknown. The learner can sample Markov chains…
We provide explicit nonasymptotic estimates for the rate of convergence of empirical means of Markov chains, together with a Gaussian or exponential control on the deviations of empirical means. These estimates hold under a "positive…
Motivated by a model presented by S. Gudder, we study a quantum generalization of Markov chains and discuss the relation between these maps and open quantum random walks, a class of quantum channels described by S. Attal et al. We consider…
We show that the minimax sample complexity for estimating the pseudo-spectral gap $\gamma_{\mathsf{ps}}$ of an ergodic Markov chain in constant multiplicative error is of the order of $$\tilde{\Theta}\left( \frac{1}{\gamma_{\mathsf{ps}}…
An important problem in the implementation of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms is to determine the convergence time, or the number of iterations before the chain is close to stationarity. For many Markov chains used in practice this time…