English
Related papers

Related papers: Distribution Estimation for Probabilistic Loops

200 papers

Probabilistic programs encode stochastic models as ordinary-looking programs with primitives for sampling numbers from predefined distributions and conditioning. Their applications include, among many others, machine learning and modeling…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Dominik Geißler , Tobias Winkler

By their very nature, rare event probabilities are expensive to compute; they are also delicate to estimate as their value strongly depends on distributional assumptions on the model parameters. Hence, understanding the sensitivity of the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2021-10-28 Michael Merritt , Alen Alexanderian , Pierre Gremaud

This paper addresses a fundamental problem in random variate generation: given access to a random source that emits a stream of independent fair bits, what is the most accurate and entropy-efficient algorithm for sampling from a discrete…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-03-10 Feras A. Saad , Cameron E. Freer , Martin C. Rinard , Vikash K. Mansinghka

Projective measurements of a single two-level quantum mechanical system (a qubit) evolving under a time-independent Hamiltonian produce a probability distribution that is periodic in the evolution time. The period of this distribution is an…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2012-06-05 Christopher Ferrie , Christopher E. Granade , D. G. Cory

A research frontier has emerged in scientific computation, wherein numerical error is regarded as a source of epistemic uncertainty that can be modelled. This raises several statistical challenges, including the design of statistical…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-10-19 François-Xavier Briol , Chris. J. Oates , Mark Girolami , Michael A. Osborne , Dino Sejdinovic

Background and objective. Circular statistics and Rayleigh tests are important tools for analyzing the occurrence of cyclic events. However, current methods fail in the presence of measurement bias, such as incomplete or otherwise…

Quantitative Methods · Quantitative Biology 2023-12-11 Abdallah Alsammani , William C. Stacey , Stephen V. Gliske

Works, briefly surveyed here, are concerned with two basic methods: Maximum Probability and Bayesian Maximum Probability; as well as with their asymptotic instances: Relative Entropy Maximization and Maximum Non-parametric Likelihood.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2008-04-25 M. Grendar

We study the problem of estimating a sequence of evolving probability distributions from historical data, where the underlying distribution changes over time in a nonstationary and nonparametric manner. To capture gradual changes, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-16 Edward J. Anderson , Dominic S. T. Keehan

We present a method to automatically approximate moment-based invariants of probabilistic programs with non-polynomial updates of continuous state variables to accommodate more complex dynamics. Our approach leverages polynomial chaos…

Applications · Statistics 2025-01-03 Andrey Kofnov , Marcel Moosbrugger , Miroslav Stankovič , Ezio Bartocci , Efstathia Bura

We first review existing sequential methods for estimating a binomial proportion. Afterward, we propose a new family of group sequential sampling schemes for estimating a binomial proportion with prescribed margin of error and confidence…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-11-05 Zhengjia Chen , Xinjia Chen

We present estimators for entropy and other functions of a discrete probability distribution when the data is a finite sample drawn from that probability distribution. In particular, for the case when the probability distribution is a joint…

comp-gas · Physics 2008-02-03 David H. Wolpert , David R. Wolf

Context: Two-point correlation functions are used throughout cosmology as a measure for the statistics of random fields. When used in Bayesian parameter estimation, their likelihood function is usually replaced by a Gaussian approximation.…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2011-10-07 David Keitel , Peter Schneider

In this paper we introduce five different algorithms based on method of moments, maximum likelihood and full Bayesian estimation for learning the parameters of the Inverse Gamma distribution. We also provide an expression for the KL…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-07-11 A. Llera , C. F. Beckmann

Importance sampling has been known as a powerful tool to reduce the variance of Monte Carlo estimator for rare event simulation. Based on the criterion of minimizing the variance of Monte Carlo estimator within a parametric family, we…

Methodology · Statistics 2013-02-11 Cheng-Der Fuh , Huei-Wen Teng , Ren-Her Wang

For massive data, the family of subsampling algorithms is popular to downsize the data volume and reduce computational burden. Existing studies focus on approximating the ordinary least squares estimate in linear regression, where…

Computation · Statistics 2019-06-27 HaiYing Wang , Rong Zhu , Ping Ma

The bootstrap is a method for estimating the distribution of an estimator or test statistic by re-sampling the data or a model estimated from the data. Under conditions that hold in a wide variety of econometric applications, the bootstrap…

Econometrics · Economics 2018-09-12 Joel L. Horowitz

We analyze the Gaussian approximation as a method to obtain the first and second moments of a stochastic process described by a master equation. We justify the use of this approximation with ideas coming from van Kampen's expansion approach…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-05-18 Luis F. Lafuerza , Raul Toral

Given a set of independent Poisson random variables with common mean, we study the distribution of their maximum and obtain an accurate asymptotic formula to locate the most probable value of the maximum. We verify our analytic results with…

Probability · Mathematics 2009-03-26 K. M. Briggs , L. Song , T. Prellberg

Triangular distributions are a well-known class of distributions that are often used as an elementary example of a probability model. Maximum likelihood estimation of the mode parameter of the triangular distribution over the unit interval…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2016-11-08 Hien D Nguyen , Geoffrey J McLachlan

Statistical system models provide the basis for the examination of various sorts of distributions. Classification distributions are a very common and versatile form of statistics in e.g. real economic, social, and IT systems. The…

Computation · Statistics 2019-12-20 Uwe Petersohn , Thomas Dedek , Sandra Zimmer , Hans Biskupski