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We study the problem of testing discrete distributions with a focus on the high probability regime. Specifically, given samples from one or more discrete distributions, a property $\mathcal{P}$, and parameters $0< \epsilon, \delta <1$, we…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-09-15 Ilias Diakonikolas , Themis Gouleakis , Daniel M. Kane , John Peebles , Eric Price

We approximate the distribution of the sum of independent but not necessarily identically distributed Bernoulli random variables using a shifted binomial distribution where the three parameters (the number of trials, the probability of…

Probability · Mathematics 2010-04-02 Vydas Čekanavičius , Erol A. Peköz , Adrian Röllin , Michael Shwartz

In this paper, we study the Bernstein polynomial model for estimating the multivariate distribution functions and densities with bounded support. As a mixture model of multivariate beta distributions, the maximum (approximate) likelihood…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-01-23 Tao Wang , Zhong Guan

We study the distribution regression problem assuming the distribution of distributions has a doubling measure larger than one. First, we explore the geometry of any distributions that has doubling measure larger than one and build a small…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-02 Ilqar Ramazanli

The density ratio is an important metric for evaluating the relative likelihood of two probability distributions, with extensive applications in statistics and machine learning. However, existing estimation theories for density ratios often…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-03 Shuntuo Xu , Zhou Yu , Jian Huang

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…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-02-14 Aryeh Kontorovich , Amichai Painsky

This paper considers the entropy of the sum of (possibly dependent and non-identically distributed) Bernoulli random variables. Upper bounds on the error that follows from an approximation of this entropy by the entropy of a Poisson random…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2016-11-17 Igal Sason

The radiological characterization of contaminated elements (walls, grounds, objects) from nuclear facilities often suffers from a too small number of measurements. In order to determine risk prediction bounds on the level of contamination,…

Applications · Statistics 2017-05-30 Géraud Blatman , Thibault Delage , Bertrand Iooss , Nadia Pérot

The maximum entropy principle is a powerful tool for solving underdetermined inverse problems. This paper considers the problem of discretizing a continuous distribution, which arises in various applied fields. We obtain the approximating…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2020-08-05 Ken'ichiro Tanaka , Alexis Akira Toda

The question of optimally approximating an arbitrary probability measure in the Wasserstein distance by a discrete one with uniform weights is considered. Estimates are obtained for the optimal approximation distance, with an explicit rate…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-04-14 Benjamin Seeger

We introduce a hierarchy of conditions necessarily satisfied by any distribution P(ab) representing the probabilities for two separate observers to obtain outcomes a and b when making local measurements on a shared quantum state. Each…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2008-03-30 Miguel Navascues , Stefano Pironio , Antonio Acin

In this paper, we present approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems under probabilistic constraints. Specifically, we focus on stochastic variants of two important combinatorial optimization problems: the k-center…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2008-09-03 Shipra Agrawal , Amin Saberi , Yinyu Ye

We prove new probabilistic upper bounds on generalization error of complex classifiers that are combinations of simple classifiers. Such combinations could be implemented by neural networks or by voting methods of combining the classifiers,…

Probability · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Vladimir Koltchinskii , Dmitry Panchenko

This paper presents a detailed study of constrained quantization for both finite and infinite discrete probability distributions supported on subsets of the real line. Under specific geometric constraints - namely, a semicircular arc and…

We study the problem of estimating a nonparametric probability density under a large family of losses called Besov IPMs, which include, for example, $\mathcal{L}^p$ distances, total variation distance, and generalizations of both…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-01-14 Ananya Uppal , Shashank Singh , Barnabás Póczos

This paper considers a distributionally robust chance constraint model with a general ambiguity set. We show that a sample based approximation of this model converges under suitable sufficient conditions. We also show that upper and lower…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-17 Jiaqi Lei , Sanjay Mehrotra

This paper is concerned with estimating the intersection point of two densities, given a sample of both of the densities. This problem arises in classification theory. The main results provide lower bounds for the probability of the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2007-12-18 Franz Merkl , Leila Mohammadi

In certain applications involving the solution of a Bayesian inverse problem, it may not be possible or desirable to evaluate the full posterior, e.g. due to the high computational cost of doing so. This problem motivates the use of…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-02-27 Han Cheng Lie , T. J. Sullivan , Aretha Teckentrup

The polygonal distributions are a class of distributions that can be defined via the mixture of triangular distributions over the unit interval. The class includes the uniform and trapezoidal distributions, and is an alternative to the beta…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-01-18 Hien D Nguyen , Geoffrey J McLachlan

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…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-12-11 Fraser Daly