Related papers: Optimal Sub-Gaussian Mean Estimation in $\mathbb{R…
There is growing interest in improving our algorithmic understanding of fundamental statistical problems such as mean estimation, driven by the goal of understanding the limits of what we can extract from valuable data. The state of the art…
We study the problem of estimating the mean of a random vector $X$ given a sample of $N$ independent, identically distributed points. We introduce a new estimator that achieves a purely sub-Gaussian performance under the only condition that…
We present a new quantum algorithm for estimating the mean of a real-valued random variable obtained as the output of a quantum computation. Our estimator achieves a nearly-optimal quadratic speedup over the number of classical i.i.d.…
We propose an estimator for the mean of a random vector in $\mathbb{R}^d$ that can be computed in time $O(n^4+n^2d)$ for $n$ i.i.d.~samples and that has error bounds matching the sub-Gaussian case. The only assumptions we make about the…
The goal of this paper is to show that a single robust estimator of the mean of a multivariate Gaussian distribution can enjoy five desirable properties. First, it is computationally tractable in the sense that it can be computed in a time…
We discuss the possibilities and limitations of estimating the mean of a real-valued random variable from independent and identically distributed observations from a non-asymptotic point of view. In particular, we define estimators with a…
The goal of this note is to present a modification of the popular median of means estimator that achieves sub-Gaussian deviation bounds with nearly optimal constants under minimal assumptions on the underlying distribution. We build on a…
We study the fundamental problem of estimating the mean of a $d$-dimensional distribution with covariance $\Sigma \preccurlyeq \sigma^2 I_d$ given $n$ samples. When $d = 1$, \cite{catoni} showed an estimator with error $(1+o(1)) \cdot…
We study the problem of estimating the mean of a multivariatedistribution based on independent samples. The main result is the proof of existence of an estimator with a non-asymptotic sub-Gaussian performance for all distributions…
We consider the problem of mean estimation assuming only finite variance. We study a new class of mean estimators constructed by integrating over random noise applied to a soft-truncated empirical mean estimator. For appropriate choices of…
This paper addresses the following question: given a sample of i.i.d. random variables with finite variance, can one construct an estimator of the unknown mean that performs nearly as well as if the data were normally distributed? One of…
Given data drawn from a collection of Gaussian variables with a common mean but different and unknown variances, what is the best algorithm for estimating their common mean? We present an intuitive and efficient algorithm for this task. As…
Let $X$ be a random variable with unknown mean and finite variance. We present a new estimator of the mean of $X$ that is robust with respect to the possible presence of outliers in the sample, provides tight sub-Gaussian deviation…
We consider the problem of estimating the mean of a random vector based on $N$ independent, identically distributed observations. We prove the existence of an estimator that has a near-optimal error in all directions in which the variance…
We study the problem of heavy-tailed mean estimation in settings where the variance of the data-generating distribution does not exist. Concretely, given a sample $\mathbf{X} = \{X_i\}_{i = 1}^n$ from a distribution $\mathcal{D}$ over…
We study the sublinear multivariate mean estimation problem in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space. Specifically, we aim to find the mean $\mu$ of a ground point set $A$, which minimizes the sum of squared Euclidean distances of the points in…
We present a fast, differentially private algorithm for high-dimensional covariance-aware mean estimation with nearly optimal sample complexity. Only exponential-time estimators were previously known to achieve this guarantee. Given $n$…
This paper establishes the optimal sub-Gaussian variance proxy for truncated Gaussian and truncated exponential random variables. The proofs rely on first characterizing the optimal variance proxy as the unique solution to a set of two…
We consider the problem of robust mean and location estimation w.r.t. any pseudo-norm of the form $x\in\mathbb{R}^d\to ||x||_S = \sup_{v\in S}<v,x>$ where $S$ is any symmetric subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$. We show that the deviation-optimal…
Randomized approximation algorithms for many #P-complete problems (such as the partition function of a Gibbs distribution, the volume of a convex body, the permanent of a $\{0,1\}$-matrix, and many others) reduce to creating random…