Related papers: On the High Accuracy Limitation of Adaptive Proper…
We provide an efficient unified plug-in approach for estimating symmetric properties of distributions given $n$ independent samples. Our estimator is based on profile-maximum-likelihood (PML) and is sample optimal for estimating various…
The advent of data science has spurred interest in estimating properties of distributions over large alphabets. Fundamental symmetric properties such as support size, support coverage, entropy, and proximity to uniformity, received most…
A striking result of [Acharya et al. 2017] showed that to estimate symmetric properties of discrete distributions, plugging in the distribution that maximizes the likelihood of observed multiset of frequencies, also known as the profile…
We study three fundamental statistical-learning problems: distribution estimation, property estimation, and property testing. We establish the profile maximum likelihood (PML) estimator as the first unified sample-optimal approach to a wide…
Estimating symmetric properties of a distribution, e.g. support size, coverage, entropy, distance to uniformity, are among the most fundamental problems in algorithmic statistics. While each of these properties have been studied extensively…
In this paper we provide a general framework for estimating symmetric properties of distributions from i.i.d. samples. For a broad class of symmetric properties we identify the easy region where empirical estimation works and the difficult…
We consider the problem of hypothesis testing for discrete distributions. In the standard model, where we have sample access to an underlying distribution $p$, extensive research has established optimal bounds for uniformity testing,…
We consider the fundamental learning problem of estimating properties of distributions over large domains. Using a novel piecewise-polynomial approximation technique, we derive the first unified methodology for constructing sample- and…
In this paper we provide a new efficient algorithm for approximately computing the profile maximum likelihood (PML) distribution, a prominent quantity in symmetric property estimation. We provide an algorithm which matches the previous best…
We study the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) for Gaussian and Poisson mixture models, assuming the support of the true mixing distribution lies in a fixed bounded set. In this setting, we establish exact parametric rates…
The best-known and most commonly used distribution-property estimation technique uses a plug-in estimator, with empirical frequency replacing the underlying distribution. We present novel linear-time-computable estimators that significantly…
One prominent method of evaluating machine learning model trustworthiness is the notion of calibration. In the binary outcome setting, a probabilistic predictor is calibrated if outcomes are realized according to a model's distributional…
Estimating properties of discrete distributions is a fundamental problem in statistical learning. We design the first unified, linear-time, competitive, property estimator that for a wide class of properties and for all underlying…
We study the sample complexity of the plug-in approach for learning $\varepsilon$-optimal policies in average-reward Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a generative model. The plug-in approach constructs a model estimate then computes an…
We study approximation of the embedding $\ell_p^m \hookrightarrow \ell_q^m$, $1 \leq p < q \leq \infty$, based on randomized algorithms that use up to $n$ arbitrary linear functionals as information on a problem instance where $n \ll m$. By…
Estimation and inference in statistics pose significant challenges when data are collected adaptively. Even in linear models, the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator may fail to exhibit asymptotic normality for single coordinate…
Distance metric learning (DML) approaches learn a transformation to a representation space where distance is in correspondence with a predefined notion of similarity. While such models offer a number of compelling benefits, it has been…
This paper discusses the problem of adaptive estimation of a univariate object like the value of a regression function at a given point or a linear functional in a linear inverse problem. We consider an adaptive procedure originated from…
A novel approach is suggested for improving the accuracy of fault detection in distribution networks. This technique combines adaptive probability learning and waveform decomposition to optimize the similarity of features. Its objective is…
We propose an efficient algorithm for approximate computation of the profile maximum likelihood (PML), a variant of maximum likelihood maximizing the probability of observing a sufficient statistic rather than the empirical sample. The PML…