Related papers: On the Minimum Attainable Risk in Permutation Inva…
Given a large number of covariates $Z$, we consider the estimation of a high-dimensional parameter $\theta$ in an individualized linear threshold $\theta^T Z$ for a continuous variable $X$, which minimizes the disagreement between…
Selective classification is a powerful tool for automated decision-making in high-risk scenarios, allowing classifiers to act only when confident and abstain when uncertainty is high. Given a target accuracy, our goal is to minimize…
Bayesian models quantify uncertainty and facilitate optimal decision-making in downstream applications. For most models, however, practitioners are forced to use approximate inference techniques that lead to sub-optimal decisions due to…
Optimal statistical decisions should transcend the language used to describe them. Yet, how do we guarantee that the choice of coordinates - the parameterisation of an optimisation problem - does not subtly dictate the solution? This paper…
We give some results relating asymptotic characterisations of maximum entropy probability measures to characterisations of Bayes optimal classifiers. Our main theorems show that maximum entropy is a universally Bayes optimal decision rule…
A common way of characterizing minimax estimators in point estimation is by moving the problem into the Bayesian estimation domain and finding a least favorable prior distribution. The Bayesian estimator induced by a least favorable prior,…
Backwards analysis, first popularized by Seidel, is often the simplest most elegant way of analyzing a randomized algorithm. It applies to incremental algorithms where elements are added incrementally, following some random permutation,…
The multivariate normal linear model is one of the most widely employed models for statistical inference in applied research. Special cases include (multivariate) t testing, (M)AN(C)OVA, (multivariate) multiple regression, and repeated…
We consider the problem of aggregating pairwise comparisons to obtain a consensus ranking order over a collection of objects. We use the popular Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model which allows us to probabilistically describe pairwise…
Majorization-minimization algorithms consist of successively minimizing a sequence of upper bounds of the objective function. These upper bounds are tight at the current estimate, and each iteration monotonically drives the objective…
This paper focuses on parameter estimation and introduces a new method for lower bounding the Bayesian risk. The method allows for the use of virtually \emph{any} information measure, including R\'enyi's $\alpha$, $\varphi$-Divergences, and…
Machine learning models have traditionally been developed under the assumption that the training and test distributions match exactly. However, recent success in few-shot learning and related problems are encouraging signs that these models…
We study a fundamental stochastic selection problem involving $n$ independent random variables, each of which can be queried at some cost. Given a tolerance level $\delta$, the goal is to find a value that is $\delta$-approximately minimum…
The problem of sequential probability forecasting is considered in the most general setting: a model set C is given, and it is required to predict as well as possible if any of the measures (environments) in C is chosen to generate the…
We consider the problem of discriminating finite-dimensional quantum processes, also called quantum supermaps, that can consist of multiple time steps. Obtaining the ultimate performance for discriminating quantum processes is of…
We propose a fast and theoretically grounded method for Bayesian variable selection and model averaging in latent variable regression models. Our framework addresses three interrelated challenges: (i) intractable marginal likelihoods, (ii)…
Optimization is widely used in statistics, and often efficiently delivers point estimates on useful spaces involving structural constraints or combinatorial structure. To quantify uncertainty, Gibbs posterior exponentiates the negative loss…
Bayesian hypothesis testing and minimax hypothesis testing represent extreme instances of detection in which the prior probabilities of the hypotheses are either completely and precisely known, or are completely unknown. Group minimax, also…
This paper extends the standard chaining technique to prove excess risk upper bounds for empirical risk minimization with random design settings even if the magnitude of the noise and the estimates is unbounded. The bound applies to many…
We consider bandit problems involving a large (possibly infinite) collection of arms, in which the expected reward of each arm is a linear function of an $r$-dimensional random vector $\mathbf{Z} \in \mathbb{R}^r$, where $r \geq 2$. The…