Related papers: Independence Testing for Bounded Degree Bayesian N…
We introduce a test for the conditional independence of random variables $X$ and $Y$ given a random variable $Z$, specifically by sampling from the joint distribution $(X,Y,Z)$, binning the support of the distribution of $Z$, and conducting…
We study the problem of independence testing given independent and identically distributed pairs taking values in a $\sigma$-finite, separable measure space. Defining a natural measure of dependence $D(f)$ as the squared $L^2$-distance…
We give a new consistent scoring function for structure learning of Bayesian networks. In contrast to traditional approaches to score-based structure learning, such as BDeu or MDL, the complexity penalty that we propose is data-dependent…
Mutual information is a well-known tool to measure the mutual dependence between variables. In this paper, a Bayesian nonparametric estimation of mutual information is established by means of the Dirichlet process and the $k$-nearest…
We apply the concept of distance covariance for testing independence of two long-range dependent time series. As test statistic we propose a linear combination of empirical distance cross-covariances. We derive the asymptotic distribution…
We propose a new setting for testing properties of distributions while receiving samples from several distributions, but few samples per distribution. Given samples from $s$ distributions, $p_1, p_2, \ldots, p_s$, we design testers for the…
Given samples from two distributions over an $n$-element set, we wish to test whether these distributions are statistically close. We present an algorithm which uses sublinear in $n$, specifically, $O(n^{2/3}\epsilon^{-8/3}\log n)$,…
Markov networks are frequently used in sciences to represent conditional independence relationships underlying observed variables arising from a complex system. It is often of interest to understand how an underlying network differs between…
Pearl and Verma developed d-separation as a widely used graphical criterion to reason about the conditional independencies that are implied by the causal structure of a Bayesian network. As acyclic ground probabilistic logic programs…
We treat the problem of testing independence between m continuous variables when m can be larger than the available sample size n. We consider three types of test statistics that are constructed as sums or sums of squares of pairwise rank…
Testing two potentially multivariate variables for statistical dependence on the basis finite samples is a fundamental statistical challenge. Here we explore a family of tests that adapt to the complexity of the relationship between the…
In this paper we consider the uniformity testing problem for high-dimensional discrete distributions (multinomials) under sparse alternatives. More precisely, we derive sharp detection thresholds for testing, based on $n$ samples, whether a…
Deciphering the associations between network connectivity and nodal attributes is one of the core problems in network science. The dependency structure and high-dimensionality of networks pose unique challenges to traditional dependency…
We study the problem of independence and conditional independence tests between categorical covariates and a continuous response variable, which has an immediate application in genetics. Instead of estimating the conditional distribution of…
Bayesian networks are widely used to learn and reason about the dependence structure of discrete variables. However, they are only capable of formally encoding symmetric conditional independence, which in practice is often too strict to…
Independence and conditional independence are fundamental concepts for reasoning about groups of random variables in probabilistic programs. Verification methods for independence are still nascent, and existing methods cannot handle…
We present a test for independence of two strictly stationary time series based on a bootstrap procedure for the distance covariance. Our test detects any kind of dependence between the two time series within an arbitrary maximum lag $L$.…
One of the goals of probabilistic inference is to decide whether an empirically observed distribution is compatible with a candidate Bayesian network. However, Bayesian networks with hidden variables give rise to highly non-trivial…
This article introduces a Bayesian nonparametric method for quantifying the relative evidence in a dataset in favour of the dependence or independence of two variables conditional on a third. The approach uses Polya tree priors on spaces of…
Constraint-based (CB) learning is a formalism for learning a causal network with a database D by performing a series of conditional-independence tests to infer structural information. This paper considers a new test of independence that…