Related papers: The Analysis of Data from Continuous Probability D…
Recent approaches to the problem of inferring a continuous probability distribution from a finite set of data have used a scalar field theory for the form of the prior probability distribution. This letter presents a more general form for…
Statistical analysis is an important tool to distinguish systematic from chance findings. Current statistical analyses rely on distributional assumptions reflecting the structure of some underlying model, which if not met lead to problems…
Imagine being shown $N$ samples of random variables drawn independently from the same distribution. What can you say about the distribution? In general, of course, the answer is nothing, unless we have some prior notions about what to…
Traditional statistical theory assumes that the analysis to be performed on a given data set is selected independently of the data themselves. This assumption breaks downs when data are re-used across analyses and the analysis to be…
The study of associations and their causal explanations is a central research activity whose methodology varies tremendously across fields. Even within specialized subfields, comparisons across textbooks and journals reveals that the basics…
Products between phase-type distributed random variables and any independent, positive and continuous random variable are studied. Their asymptotic properties are established, and an expectation-maximization algorithm for their effective…
Symbolic data analysis has been proposed as a technique for summarising large and complex datasets into a much smaller and tractable number of distributions -- such as random rectangles or histograms -- each describing a portion of the…
The question of how best to estimate a continuous probability density from finite data is an intriguing open problem at the interface of statistics and physics. Previous work has argued that this problem can be addressed in a natural way…
Traditional statistical inference considers relatively small data sets and the corresponding theoretical analysis focuses on the asymptotic behavior of a statistical estimator when the number of samples approaches infinity. However, many…
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…
Speculative optimisation relies on the estimation of the probabilities that certain properties of the control flow are fulfilled. Concrete or estimated branch probabilities can be used for searching and constructing advantageous speculative…
A composite likelihood is an inference function derived by multiplying a set of likelihood components. This approach provides a flexible framework for drawing inference when the likelihood function of a statistical model is computationally…
In this pedagogical text aimed at those wanting to start thinking about or brush up on probabilistic inference, I review the rules by which probability distribution functions can (and cannot) be combined. I connect these rules to the…
In distributional or average-case analysis, the goal is to design an algorithm with good-on-average performance with respect to a specific probability distribution. Distributional analysis can be useful for the study of general-purpose…
This paper extends my research applying statistical decision theory to treatment choice with sample data, using maximum regret to evaluate the performance of treatment rules. The specific new contribution is to study as-if optimization…
We study a diagnostic strategy which is based on the anticipation of the diagnostic process by simulation of the dynamical process starting from the initial findings. We show that such a strategy could result in more accurate diagnoses…
Commonly observed patterns typically follow a few distinct families of probability distributions. Over one hundred years ago, Karl Pearson provided a systematic derivation and classification of the common continuous distributions. His…
Probability distributions can be read as simple expressions of information. Each continuous probability distribution describes how information changes with magnitude. Once one learns to read a probability distribution as a measurement scale…
Various kinds of data are routinely represented as discrete probability distributions. Examples include text documents summarized by histograms of word occurrences and images represented as histograms of oriented gradients. Viewing a…
Originally, quantum probability theory was developed to analyze statistical phenomena in quantum systems, where classical probability theory does not apply, because the lattice of measurable sets is not necessarily distributive. On the…