Related papers: Sharp bounds on aggregate expert error
The problem of aggregating expert forecasts is ubiquitous in fields as wide-ranging as machine learning, economics, climate science, and national security. Despite this, our theoretical understanding of this question is fairly shallow. This…
In this paper, we compute the tightest possible bounds on the probability that the optimal value of a combinatorial optimization problem in maximization form with a random objective exceeds a given number, assuming only knowledge of the…
We consider robust optimization problems, where the goal is to optimize in the worst case over a class of objective functions. We develop a reduction from robust improper optimization to Bayesian optimization: given an oracle that returns…
Consider an ensemble of $k$ individual classifiers whose accuracies are known. Upon receiving a test point, each of the classifiers outputs a predicted label and a confidence in its prediction for this particular test point. In this paper,…
We model the joint distribution of choice probabilities and decision times in binary choice tasks as the solution to a problem of optimal sequential sampling, where the agent is uncertain of the utility of each action and pays a constant…
We explore the role of group symmetries in binary classification tasks, presenting a novel framework that leverages the principles of Neyman-Pearson optimality. Contrary to the common intuition that larger symmetry groups lead to improved…
We analyze the forward error in the floating point summation of real numbers, for computations in low precision or extreme-scale problem dimensions that push the limits of the precision. We present a systematic recurrence for a martingale…
A set of probabilistic predictions is well calibrated if the events that are predicted to occur with probability p do in fact occur about p fraction of the time. Well calibrated predictions are particularly important when machine learning…
Starting from considerations about meaning and subsequent use of asymmetric uncertainty intervals of experimental results, we review the issue of uncertainty propagation. We show that, using a probabilistic approach (the so-called Bayesian…
We present a generalization of the maximal inequalities that upper bound the expectation of the maximum of $n$ jointly distributed random variables. We control the expectation of a randomly selected random variable from $n$ jointly…
In this work, the probability of an event under some joint distribution is bounded by measuring it with the product of the marginals instead (which is typically easier to analyze) together with a measure of the dependence between the two…
This note presents sharp inequalities for deviation probability of a general quadratic form of a random vector \(\xiv\) with finite exponential moments. The obtained deviation bounds are similar to the case of a Gaussian random vector. The…
There is a fundamental limitation in the prediction performance that a machine learning model can achieve due to the inevitable uncertainty of the prediction target. In classification problems, this can be characterized by the Bayes error,…
In the general signal+noise model we construct an empirical Bayes posterior which we then use for uncertainty quantification for the unknown, possibly sparse, signal. We introduce a novel excessive bias restriction (EBR) condition, which…
What does it mean to say that, for example, the probability for rain tomorrow is between 20% and 30%? The theory for the evaluation of precise probabilistic forecasts is well-developed and is grounded in the key concepts of proper scoring…
Asymmetric statistical errors arise for experimental results obtained by Maximum Likelihood estimation, in cases where the number of results is finite and the log likelihood function is not a symmetric parabola. This note discusses how…
This paper considers a distributed adaptive optimization problem, where all agents only have access to their local cost functions with a common unknown parameter, whereas they mean to collaboratively estimate the true parameter and find the…
We study the empirical likelihood approach to construct confidence intervals for the optimal value and the optimality gap of a given solution, henceforth quantify the statistical uncertainty of sample average approximation, for optimization…
We study the interpretability of conditional probability estimates for binary classification under the agnostic setting or scenario. Under the agnostic setting, conditional probability estimates do not necessarily reflect the true…
We consider nonparametric estimation of a mixed discrete-continuous distribution under anisotropic smoothness conditions and possibly increasing number of support points for the discrete part of the distribution. For these settings, we…