The maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) is a kernel-based distance between probability distributions useful in many applications (Gretton et al. 2012), bearing a simple estimator with pleasing computational and statistical properties. Being able to efficiently estimate the variance of this estimator is very helpful to vario…
Study improves MMD estimation for two distributions with mismeasured data.
problem Estimating MMD under contaminated data.
method Partial identification of MMD bounds with a fast convergence rate.
result Proposes a method to estimate MMD bounds that converge faster than alternatives.
New method improves MMD estimation without convexity assumptions.
problem Lack of theoretical guarantees for MMD estimation algorithms.
method Preconditioned gradient descent (PGD) scheme for MMD optimization.
result PGD scheme converges globally under specific conditions.
New method for MMD with unequal sample sizes improves test power.
problem Existing MMD methods assume equal sample sizes, discarding valuable data.
method Extended generalized U-statistics to handle unequal sample sizes.
result New asymptotic distributions and power optimization for MMD with unequal sample sizes.
Unified method for MMD variance estimation improves accuracy and computational efficiency.
problem Variance estimation for MMD in nonparametric testing.
method Unified finite-sample characterization of MMD variance through U-statistic and Hoeffding decomposition; exact acceleration method for univariate case.
result Unified estimators improve accuracy and computational efficiency for MMD variance.
Improved MMD estimator for likelihood-free inference.
problem Computational challenges in estimating MMD for likelihood-free inference.
method Optimally-weighted MMD estimator with improved sample complexity.
result Significantly improved sample complexity for accurate MMD estimation.
The article introduces practical estimators for kernel discrepancies.
problem Estimating kernel discrepancies accurately and efficiently.
method Presented various estimators for MMD, HSIC, and KSD, including V-statistics, U-statistics, and incomplete U-statistics. Stressed the importance of kernel bandwidth and introduced adaptive estimators.
result Adaptive estimators combining multiple estimators with various kernels address the problem of kernel selection.
Paper improves MMD flow efficiency with Riesz kernels for image generation.
problem High computational costs in MMD flows for large scale computations.
method Introduces Riesz kernels and sliced MMD for efficient computation.
result Efficient computation of MMD gradients in one-dimensional setting.
This thesis improves kernel-based distances for statistical inference and integration.
problem Efficiently measuring distances between probability distributions for robust and smooth modeling.
method Kernel-based distances, focusing on maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) and novel kernel quantile discrepancies.
result Improved MMD estimators for simulation-based inference and conditional expectations.
We investigate the training and performance of generative adversarial networks using the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) as critic, termed MMD GANs. As our main theoretical contribution, we clarify the situation with bias in GAN loss functions raised by recent work: we show that gradient estimators used in the optimizat…
New method uses MMD estimators to enforce model invariance with missing data.
problem Models trained on missing data can fail on related test distributions.
method Derives MMD estimators for enforcing model invariance under missing nuisances.
result Optimizing through MMD estimates achieves similar test performance to using full data.
"Which Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) generates the most plausible images?" has been a frequently asked question among researchers. To address this problem, we first propose an \emph{incomplete} U-statistics estimate of maximum mean discrepancy MMDinc to measure the distribution discrepancy betwee…
The Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) has found numerous applications in statistics and machine learning, most recently as a penalty in the Wasserstein Auto-Encoder (WAE). In this paper we compute closed-form expressions for estimating the Gaussian kernel based MMD between a given distribution and the standard multivariat…
We construct a Wasserstein gradient flow of the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) and study its convergence properties. The MMD is an integral probability metric defined for a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), and serves as a metric on probability measures for a sufficiently rich RKHS. We obtain conditions for conv…
A new kernel test reduces noise in MMD by focusing on leading eigen-directions.
problem Noise in trailing directional components degrades power of standard kernel two-sample tests.
method Truncate MMD spectral decomposition, retaining only leading eigen-directions.
result Our method achieves superior power and robustness, especially in high-dimensional and unbalanced settings.
We propose a method to optimize the representation and distinguishability of samples from two probability distributions, by maximizing the estimated power of a statistical test based on the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD). This optimized MMD is applied to the setting of unsupervised learning by generative adversarial ne…
The maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) is a recently proposed test statistic for two-sample test. Its quadratic time complexity, however, greatly hampers its availability to large-scale applications. To accelerate the MMD calculation, in this study we propose an efficient method called FastMMD. The core idea of FastMMD is …
New algorithm improves clustering and quantization using MMD.
problem Approximating probability distributions with weighted mixtures of Dirac measures.
method Gradient flow, mean shift, and MMD-optimal quantization.
result MSIP algorithm is more robust than state-of-the-art methods.
New method finds points for approximating distributions faster.
problem Approximating target probability distributions using finite points.
method Stationary MMD points computed via MMD gradient flows.
result Stationary MMD points converge faster than global minimizers.
New KQEs improve probability metrics without mean function constraints.
problem Improving probability metrics without relying on mean function representations.
method Kernel quantile embeddings (KQEs) to construct new distances.
result KQEs offer a competitive alternative to MMD with near-linear cost.
A new variable importance measure for DRFs detects broader impacts on output distributions.
problem Estimating full conditional distributions of multivariate outputs given inputs.
method Based on the drop and relearn principle and MMD distance.
result Consistent and high-performing variable importance measure for DRFs.
Proposes a semi-Bayesian nonparametric estimator for MMD in GOF tests and GANs.
problem Challenges in goodness-of-fit testing for intractable models.
method Semi-Bayesian nonparametric estimator of MMD.
result Outperforms frequentist MMD-based methods in false rejection and acceptance rates.
Paper improves MMD estimation for analytical mean embeddings.
problem Improving MMD estimation for distributions with analytical mean embeddings.
method Proposes a tighter concentration result for MMD estimation under semi-explicit settings and extends to unbounded kernels.
result Demonstrates efficiency in real-world applications like index replication and calibration.
A new method uses neural tangent kernel to efficiently compute MMD statistic.
problem Efficiently computing Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) statistic with low memory and computational complexity.
method Identifies a connection between neural tangent kernel (NTK) and MMD to develop a computationally and memory-efficient approach.
result The proposed NTK-MMD statistic is validated through numerical experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets.
Gradient descent on MMD GAN parameter space converges globally to target distribution.
problem Convergence of gradient descent in Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) GANs.
method Proposes a parametric kernelized gradient flow that mimics the min-max game in gradient regularized MMD GAN.
result Gradient descent on the generator's parameter space in gradient regularized MMD GAN is globally convergent to the target distribution under certain conditions.
A new test statistic speeds up MMD while maintaining power.
problem Efficiently testing two distributions without permutations.
method Cross-MMD statistic based on sample-splitting and studentization.
result Cross-MMD has a limiting standard Gaussian distribution under the null.
Dependent MMD coresets help compare multiple related datasets.
problem Comparing multiple related datasets for insights into model generalization.
method Dependent MMD coresets for collections of datasets.
result Dependent MMD coresets facilitate comparison and understanding of multiple related datasets.
A new method optimizes MMD test power by dynamically selecting kernels, overcoming traditional trade-offs.
problem Fixed kernels fail to distinguish certain distributions, leading to overfitting and variance collapse.
method Complexity-Penalized MMD (CP-MMD) criterion, derived from concentration inequality, optimizes kernel selection.
result CP-MMD maximizes true test power while ensuring unconditional Type-I validity, matching or exceeding state-of-the-art performance.
Maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) has been widely adopted in domain adaptation to measure the discrepancy between the source and target domain distributions. Many existing domain adaptation approaches are based on the joint MMD, which is computed as the (weighted) sum of the marginal distribution discrepancy and the condi…
EVI-MMD approximates target distributions via MMD minimization with adaptive kernel.
problem Approximating target distributions using kernel discrepancy methods.
method EVI-MMD uses Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) to minimize kernel discrepancy, solving ODEs with implicit Euler scheme and L-BFGS optimization.
result EVI-MMD with adaptive bandwidth selection significantly improves performance in sampling problems.
This paper refines MMD for domain adaptation by balancing intra-class and inter-class distances.
problem Balancing intra-class and inter-class distances for better feature discriminability in domain adaptation.
method The paper theoretically proves two facts about MMD and proposes a novel discriminative MMD method to balance intra-class and inter-class distances.
result The proposed method improves feature discriminability and outperforms state-of-the-art methods.
sig-MMD tests compare path distributions using kernel methods.
problem Comparing path distributions in stochastic processes.
method Signature kernel for path space valued distributions.
result sig-MMD can lead to Type 2 errors in limited data settings.
Kernel-based mean-field games use MMD penalties for interaction and target costs.
problem Optimizing mean-field games with specific cost functions.
method Kernel structure, random Fourier U-statistics, neural network training.
result Sample-level convergence theorem and rate of convergence proved.
MMD-Flagger detects hallucinations in LLMs by tracking MMD between outputs and temperature-generated counterparts.
problem Detecting hallucinations in large language models.
method Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) to track the difference between model outputs and temperature-generated counterparts.
result MMD-Flagger detects most hallucinations by analyzing the shape of the MMD trajectory.
Paper optimizes PCA for fairness using MMD and Stiefel manifold optimization.
problem Fair principal component analysis (PCA) to minimize MMD between protected classes.
method Formulates fair PCA as non-convex optimization over Stiefel manifold, solves using REPMS with theoretical guarantees.
result Our approach outperforms prior work in fairness, explained variance, and runtime.
Boosts kernel two-sample test power with multiple kernels.
problem Detecting differences between two distributions over metric spaces.
method Combining MMD estimates over multiple kernels using Mahalanobis distance.
result More powerful in detecting a wide range of alternatives in finite samples.
A new MMD-based test combines kernels for two-sample testing without splitting data.
problem Efficiently testing if two datasets come from the same distribution without splitting data.
method Proposes a novel statistic based on Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) that combines kernels, proving concentration bounds and showing data-dependent kernel selection.
result Exponential concentration bounds and improved test power compared to existing methods.
MMD test detects adversarial attacks by addressing kernel limitations and non-independence issues.
problem MMD test's failure to detect adversarial attacks.
method Replaced Gaussian kernel with deep kernel, maximized test power, and used wild bootstrap for non-independence.
result MMD test is aware of adversarial attacks.
MMD-B-Fair learns fair representations by minimizing MMD test power.
problem Learning fair representations of data while preserving target attributes.
method Kernel two-sample testing and block testing schemes.
result Minimizing MMD test power allows hiding sensitive attribute information.
Generative adversarial nets (GANs) are widely used to learn the data sampling process and their performance may heavily depend on the loss functions, given a limited computational budget. This study revisits MMD-GAN that uses the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) as the loss function for GAN and makes two contributions. F…
Improved MMD test for two-sample testing with random Fourier features.
problem Quadratic-time complexity of MMD test for large-scale analysis.
method Approximated MMD test using random Fourier features, investigating time-power trade-off.
result Sub-quadratic time complexity with same minimax separation rates as MMD test.
In some misspecified settings, the posterior distribution in Bayesian statistics may lead to inconsistent estimates. To fix this issue, it has been suggested to replace the likelihood by a pseudo-likelihood, that is the exponential of a loss function enjoying suitable robustness properties. In this paper, we build a ps…
A test for comparing function samples using MMD.
problem Testing if two functional data samples come from the same distribution.
method Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) for functional data, with theoretical scaling analysis.
result The proposed test is effective and robust to functional reconstructions.
Estimates and tests treatment effects on entire outcome distributions.
problem Treatment effects on entire outcome distributions, not just averages.
method Proposes a novel estimand and doubly robust estimator, develops a test.
result First test with provably valid type 1 error guarantees in this setting.
KALE flow approximates KL divergence for distributions with disjoint support.
problem Approximating KL divergence for distributions with disjoint support.
method Relaxed KL gradient flow using RKHS, continuously interpolating between KL and MMD.
result Global convergence of KALE flow under sufficient smoothness assumptions.
We study the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) in the context of critical transitions modelled by fast-slow stochastic dynamical systems. We establish a new link between the dynamical theory of critical transitions with the statistical aspects of the MMD. In particular, we show that a formal approximation of the MMD near …
Mean embeddings provide an extremely flexible and powerful tool in machine learning and statistics to represent probability distributions and define a semi-metric (MMD, maximum mean discrepancy; also called N-distance or energy distance), with numerous successful applications. The representation is constructed as the e…
New framework improves model reliability under distribution shifts.
problem Lack of formal guarantees connecting shift magnitude to prediction reliability in TTA methods.
method Develops a PAC-Bayesian framework interpreting MMD-balls as credal sets.
result Establishes generalization bounds and provides epistemic uncertainty quantification.