Related papers: Instance Dependent Testing of Samplers using Inter…
Samplers are the backbone of the implementations of any randomised algorithm. Unfortunately, obtaining an efficient algorithm to test the correctness of samplers is very hard to find. Recently, in a series of works, testers like…
Independence testing is a fundamental problem in statistical inference: given samples from a joint distribution $p$ over multiple random variables, the goal is to determine whether $p$ is a product distribution or is $\epsilon$-far from all…
We study the problem of testing \emph{conditional independence} for discrete distributions. Specifically, given samples from a discrete random variable $(X, Y, Z)$ on domain $[\ell_1]\times[\ell_2] \times [n]$, we want to distinguish, with…
In this paper we study the problem of testing of constrained samplers over high-dimensional distributions with $(\varepsilon,\eta,\delta)$ guarantees. Samplers are increasingly used in a wide range of safety-critical ML applications, and…
We consider the problem of hypothesis testing for discrete distributions. In the standard model, where we have sample access to an underlying distribution $p$, extensive research has established optimal bounds for uniformity testing,…
We study a new framework for property testing of probability distributions, by considering distribution testing algorithms that have access to a conditional sampling oracle.* This is an oracle that takes as input a subset $S \subseteq [N]$…
Sampling is a fundamental problem in computer science and statistics. However, for a given task and stream, it is often not possible to choose good sampling probabilities in advance. We derive a general framework for adaptively changing the…
Randomized algorithms depend on accurate sampling from probability distributions, as their correctness and performance hinge on the quality of the generated samples. However, even for common distributions like Binomial, exact sampling is…
Distribution testing deals with what information can be deduced about an unknown distribution over $\{1,\ldots,n\}$, where the algorithm is only allowed to obtain a relatively small number of independent samples from the distribution. In…
There has been considerable recent interest in distribution-tests whose run-time and sample requirements are sublinear in the domain-size $k$. We study two of the most important tests under the conditional-sampling model where each query…
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…
Suppose we have a memory storing $0$s and $1$s and we want to estimate the frequency of $1$s by sampling. We want to do this I/O-efficiently, exploiting that each read gives a block of $B$ bits at unit cost; not just one bit. If the input…
Experimental testing is vital in the optimization of web applications, and as such A/B testing has been widely adopted as a methodology for determining optimal content for many web applications. While some testing platforms provide…
One of the most fundamental problems in distribution testing is the identity testing problem: given samples $x_1,\ldots,x_s$, the goal is to determine whether the samples are drawn from a target distribution $\mathcal{D}$. When…
A conditional sampling oracle for a probability distribution D returns samples from the conditional distribution of D restricted to a specified subset of the domain. A recent line of work (Chakraborty et al. 2013 and Cannone et al. 2014)…
Equivalence testing, a fundamental problem in the field of distribution testing, seeks to infer if two unknown distributions on $[n]$ are the same or far apart in the total variation distance. Conditional sampling has emerged as a powerful…
We tackle the problem of conditioning probabilistic programs on distributions of observable variables. Probabilistic programs are usually conditioned on samples from the joint data distribution, which we refer to as deterministic…
We propose and analyze a generalized splitting method to sample approximately from a distribution conditional on the occurrence of a rare event. This has important applications in a variety of contexts in operations research, engineering,…
Given samples from an unknown distribution $p$, is it possible to distinguish whether $p$ belongs to some class of distributions $\mathcal{C}$ versus $p$ being far from every distribution in $\mathcal{C}$? This fundamental question has…
We study the problem of testing discrete distributions with a focus on the high probability regime. Specifically, given samples from one or more discrete distributions, a property $\mathcal{P}$, and parameters $0< \epsilon, \delta <1$, we…