Related papers: Finite-sample properties of the trimmed mean
It is well-known that trimmed sample means are robust against heavy tails and data contamination. This paper analyzes the performance of trimmed means and related methods in two novel contexts. The first one consists of estimating…
Most of the modern literature on robust mean estimation focuses on designing estimators which obtain optimal sub-Gaussian concentration bounds under minimal moment assumptions and sometimes also assuming contamination. This work looks at…
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…
This paper introduces a new version of the smoothly trimmed mean with a more general version of weights, which can be used as an alternative to the classical trimmed mean. We derive its asymptotic variance and to further investigate its…
Finite sample properties of random covariance-type matrices have been the subject of much research. In this paper we focus on the "lower tail" of such a matrix, and prove that it is subgaussian under a simple fourth moment assumption on the…
We consider the problem of estimating the mean of a random vector based on i.i.d. observations and adversarial contamination. We introduce a multivariate extension of the trimmed-mean estimator and show its optimal performance under minimal…
We present new M-estimators of the mean and variance of real valued random variables, based on PAC-Bayes bounds. We analyze the non-asymptotic minimax properties of the deviations of those estimators for sample distributions having either a…
We revisit the problem of estimating the mean of a real-valued distribution, presenting a novel estimator with sub-Gaussian convergence: intuitively, "our estimator, on any distribution, is as accurate as the sample mean is for the Gaussian…
We propose an estimator for the mean of random variables in separable real Banach spaces using the empirical characteristic function. Assuming that the covariance operator of the random variable is bounded in a precise sense, we show that…
We present new estimators of the mean of a real valued random variable, based on PAC-Bayesian iterative truncation. We analyze the non-asymptotic minimax properties of the deviations of estimators for distributions having either a bounded…
The exact expression for the probability density $p_{_N}(x)$ for sums of a finite number $N$ of random independent terms is obtained. It is shown that the very tail of $p_{_N}(x)$ has a Gaussian form if and only if all the random terms are…
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…
We investigate the sub-Gaussian property for almost surely bounded random variables. If sub-Gaussianity per se is de facto ensured by the bounded support of said random variables, then exciting research avenues remain open. Among these…
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 develop a probabilistic method for assessing the tail behavior and geometric stability of one-dimensional n i.i.d. samples by tracking how their span contracts when the most extreme points are trimmed. Central to our approach is the…
Simulation from the truncated multivariate normal distribution in high dimensions is a recurrent problem in statistical computing, and is typically only feasible using approximate MCMC sampling. In this article we propose a minimax tilting…
The multivariate version of the Mixed Tempered Stable is proposed. It is a generalization of the Normal Variance Mean Mixtures. Characteristics of this new distribution and its capacity in fitting tails and capturing dependence structure…
We consider moderately trimmed sums of non-negative i.i.d. random variables. We show that for every distribution function there exists a proper moderate trimming such that for the trimmed sum a non-trivial strong law of large numbers holds.…
This paper proposes a Bayesian method for estimating the parameters of a normal distribution when only limited summary statistics (sample mean, minimum, maximum, and sample size) are available. To estimate the parameters of a normal…
Linear Least Squares is a very well known technique for parameter estimation, which is used even when sub-optimal, because of its very low computational requirements and the fact that exact knowledge of the noise statistics is not required.…