Develops asymptotic analysis for RandNLA sampling estimators in least-squares problems.
problem Lack of distributional information for RandNLA estimators in statistical inference.
method Asymptotic analysis of sampling estimators for least-squares problems in two settings.
result Sampling estimators are asymptotically normally distributed under mild conditions.
Score function estimators improve k-subset sampling efficiency.
problem Efficiently sampling k-subsets in machine learning tasks. method Revisit score function estimators, using discrete Fourier transform and control variates.
result Efficient and unbiased gradient estimates for k-subset sampling. Proposes a neural network method to combine nonprobability and probability survey samples.
problem Combining nonprobability and probability survey samples for accurate population mean estimation.
method Uses a deep neural network to estimate sampling scores from nonprobability samples and combines them with probability sample information.
result Proposed estimators improve robustness to parametric propensity-score misspecification, especially for nonlinear selection mechanisms.
Meta-learners improve causal effect estimation in small samples.
problem Estimating causal effects using machine learning methods.
method Sample-splitting and cross-fitting to reduce overfitting bias.
result Meta-learners' performance depends on sample size and estimation procedure.
Estimates set overlap and similarity using random samples.
problem Estimating set overlap and similarity with limited data.
method Binomial model for predicting set overlap, comparing to previous methods.
result Binomial model provides better estimates with small sample sizes.
Estimates manifold dimension from random samples.
problem Estimating the dimension of a manifold from random samples.
method Explicit theoretical and heuristic bounds for data set size.
result Data set needs to be sufficiently large for accurate dimension estimation.
Importance sampling is often used in machine learning when training and testing data come from different distributions. In this paper we propose a new variant of importance sampling that can reduce the variance of importance sampling-based estimates by orders of magnitude when the supports of the training and testing d…
New sampling methods improve classifier performance estimation.
problem Efficiently selecting data points to estimate classifier performance.
method Introduced and compared Importance Sampling and Poisson Sampling.
result Poisson Sampling outperforms Importance Sampling.
Paper proposes a new DR estimator for adaptive experiments with improved performance.
problem Improving policy evaluation in adaptive experiments with dependent samples.
method Adaptive-fitting variant of sample-splitting for non-Donsker nuisance estimators.
result Proposed DR estimator shows better performance than other estimators with dependent samples.
Estimates Gaussian mixtures from weighted samples efficiently.
problem Estimating Gaussian mixtures from weighted samples with correct weight treatment.
method Density interpretation and expectation-maximization method considering weights.
result Correctly estimates Gaussian mixtures with weighted samples.
New method shows Hessian estimator from random samples converges to true Hessian on complex manifolds.
problem Uncertainty in Hessian estimator accuracy on complex manifolds with boundaries and nonuniform sampling.
method Locally fitting quadratic polynomials, rigorous theoretical analysis under mild conditions.
result The Hessian estimator asymptotically converges to the true Hessian, even near boundaries.
Estimates interactions between modalities for multimodal data.
problem Accurately quantifying interactions between different data types.
method Developed Lightweight Sample-wise Multimodal Interaction (LSMI) estimator using pointwise information theory.
result LSMI reveals fine-grained dynamics in multimodal data.
ARMS improves gradient estimation for binary variables using antithetic samples.
problem Estimating gradients for binary variables in discrete latent variable models.
method ARMS uses antithetic samples generated by a copula to estimate gradients more efficiently and unbiasedly.
result ARMS outperforms competing methods in training generative models and optimizing variational bounds.
Estimates neural representation dimensionality from small sample sizes.
problem Estimating neural representation dimensionality from limited data.
method Proposed a bias-corrected estimator for participation ratio of eigenvalues.
result The estimator is more accurate with finite samples and noise.
A large dimensional characterization of robust M-estimators of covariance (or scatter) is provided under the assumption that the dataset comprises independent (essentially Gaussian) legitimate samples as well as arbitrary deterministic samples, referred to as outliers. Building upon recent random matrix advances in the…
A new method samples from a target density without initial samples using Monte Carlo estimation of the score.
problem Sampling from a target density without initial samples.
method Monte Carlo estimation of the score using oracle access to the log likelihood.
result Samples can be produced from the target density without needing initial samples.
Method estimates Bayesian evidence from posterior samples using normalizing flows.
problem Estimating Bayesian evidence from posterior samples.
method Normalizing flows for evidence estimation.
result Method is more robust to sharp features in posterior distributions, especially in higher dimensions.
We consider the problem of off-policy evaluation in Markov decision processes. Off-policy evaluation is the task of evaluating the expected return of one policy with data generated by a different, behavior policy. Importance sampling is a technique for off-policy evaluation that re-weights off-policy returns to account…
CARMS improves gradient estimation for categorical variables.
problem Accurately backpropagating gradients through categorical variables.
method CARMS combines REINFORCE with antithetic sampling to create unbiased gradient estimators.
result CARMS outperforms competing methods on various tasks.
Unified method for estimating properties of large domain distributions efficiently.
problem Estimating properties of distributions over large domains efficiently.
method Piecewise-polynomial approximation technique for constructing sample- and time-efficient estimators.
result Near-linear-time computable estimators with optimal and highly-concentrated approximation values.
Study improves estimation of rare language model outputs.
problem Estimating probabilities of rare outputs in language models.
method Importance sampling vs. activation extrapolation for low probability estimation.
result Importance sampling outperforms activation extrapolation.
A significant hurdle for analyzing large sample data is the lack of effective statistical computing and inference methods. An emerging powerful approach for analyzing large sample data is subsampling, by which one takes a random subsample from the original full sample and uses it as a surrogate for subsequent computati…
New method improves covariance estimation for weighted samples.
problem Improving covariance estimation for weighted sample data.
method Asymptotic non-linear shrinkage formulas for covariance and precision matrix estimators of weighted sample covariances.
result Asymptotic non-linear shrinkage formulas for covariance and precision matrix estimators of weighted sample covariances.
EB-RANSAC uses energy-based model for robust estimation without complex sampling.
problem Robust estimation of parameters in noisy data.
method EB-RANSAC combines RANSAC's sampling scheme with an energy-based model, simplifying the process and reducing hyperparameter requirements.
result EB-RANSAC effectively solves linear regression and maximum likelihood estimation problems.
Optimally estimates a functional using nuisance function tuning and sample splitting.
problem Estimating optimal rates for a doubly robust functional.
method Combines nuisance function tuning and sample splitting strategies.
result Shows optimal rates of convergence for various estimators.
Framework improves gradient estimation for faster training convergence.
problem Efficiently estimating noisy gradients in stochastic optimization.
method Dynamic adaptive importance sampling combining multiple distributions.
result Adaptively weighted multiple importance sampling yields superior gradient estimates.
This study calculates the maximum error of a famous estimation method.
problem Estimating rare items not seen in a sample.
method Characterizes the maximal mean-squared error of the Good-Turing estimator.
result Characterizes the maximal mean-squared error of the Good-Turing estimator.
New estimator reduces variance in discrete random variables.
problem Estimating gradients for discrete random variables with reduced variance.
method Sampling without replacement and Rao-Blackwellization.
result Our estimator is the most consistent gradient estimator across different entropy settings.
New method improves active statistical inference by reducing noise.
problem Inaccurate uncertainty estimates in active sampling lead to noisy results.
method Robust sampling strategies that interpolate between uniform and active sampling based on uncertainty scores.
result The robust sampling ensures that the estimator is never worse than uniform sampling and usually outperforms active inference.
In this paper, we develop a general theory of truncated inverse binomial sampling. In this theory, the fixed-size sampling and inverse binomial sampling are accommodated as special cases. In particular, the classical Chernoff-Hoeffding bound is an immediate consequence of the theory. Moreover, we propose a rigorous and…
Estimates support in distributions with sampling artifacts and errors.
problem Support estimation in the presence of sampling artifacts and errors.
method Regularized weighted Chebyshev approximations with Touchard polynomials, discretized semi-infinte programming.
result Significant improvements over noiseless support estimation methods.
The paper optimizes RV estimation by efficient sampling in time-changed diffusion models.
problem Improving realized variance (RV) estimation in time-changed diffusion models.
method Theoretical analysis and simulations of hitting time and realized business time sampling schemes.
result Realized business time sampling is empirically most efficient for high noise levels.
We develop a new method to estimate failure probabilities in complex systems.
problem Estimating failure probabilities in safety-critical autonomous systems is challenging due to the rarity of failures and large state spaces.
method We propose an adaptive importance sampling algorithm that minimizes forward Kullback-Leibler divergence and uses Markov score ascent methods.
result Our method provides more accurate failure probability estimates than existing techniques.
Monte Carlo (MC) sampling algorithms are an extremely widely-used technique to estimate expectations of functions f(x), especially in high dimensions. Control variates are a very powerful technique to reduce the error of such estimates, but in their conventional form rely on having an accurate approximation of f, a pri…
LGD breaks the chicken-and-egg loop in adaptive SGD by using LSH sampling.
problem Challenging per-iteration cost of adaptive gradient sampling.
method Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) sampled Stochastic Gradient Descent (LGD).
result Superior and faster gradient estimation with similar per-iteration cost.
Paper extends Chernoff sampling for active testing and parameter estimation, improving neural network and regression models.
problem Reducing sample complexity in hypothesis testing and model parameter estimation.
method Developed an extension of Chernoff sampling for active learning and parameter estimation.
result Non-asymptotic bounds for sample complexity and estimation error in active learning.
Paper offers a framework for estimating symmetric properties efficiently.
problem Estimating symmetric properties of distributions from samples.
method General framework using profile maximum likelihood (PML) distribution.
result Optimal sample complexity for many properties, practical algorithms.
Recent progress in deep latent variable models has largely been driven by the development of flexible and scalable variational inference methods. Variational training of this type involves maximizing a lower bound on the log-likelihood, using samples from the variational posterior to compute the required gradients. Rec…
Generative models use DAE or DSM to estimate score, then Langevin sampling for sampling.
problem Estimating the score function of complex distributions for sampling.
method DAE or DSM for score estimation, Langevin sampling for sampling.
result Finite-sample bounds in Wasserstein distance for the sampling scheme.
Improved locally private sparse estimation with multiple samples per user.
problem Challenges in high-dimensional locally private sparse estimation.
method Proposes a framework for user-level locally private sparse linear regression with multiple samples per user.
result Eliminates the dependency of dimensionality on error bounds, achieving tighter error bounds.
We study three fundamental statistical-learning problems: distribution estimation, property estimation, and property testing. We establish the profile maximum likelihood (PML) estimator as the first unified sample-optimal approach to a wide range of learning tasks. In particular, for every alphabet size k and desired…
The paper improves high-dimensional linear regression prediction and estimation using auxiliary samples.
problem Estimating and predicting high-dimensional linear regression models with auxiliary samples.
method Proposes Trans-Lasso for data-driven transfer learning, establishing optimality for prediction and estimation.
result Knowledge from auxiliary samples can improve learning performance in target problems.
New method estimates Bayesian evidence more accurately and faster.
problem Estimating normalizing constants in Bayesian inference.
method Gaussianized Bridge Sampling (GBS) using posterior samples and Normalizing Flows.
result GBS is significantly faster and more accurate than existing methods.
The paper explains why estimating a history-dependent policy can reduce MSE in reinforcement learning.
problem Understanding why history-dependent policies can improve MSE in off-policy evaluation.
method The paper derives a bias-variance decomposition of MSE for various OPE estimators, showing how history-dependent policies can decrease variance and increase bias.
result History-dependent policies can decrease the variance of importance sampling estimators, leading to lower MSE.
A density ratio is defined by the ratio of two probability densities. We study the inference problem of density ratios and apply a semi-parametric density-ratio estimator to the two-sample homogeneity test. In the proposed test procedure, the f-divergence between two probability densities is estimated using a density-r…
Importance-weighting is a popular and well-researched technique for dealing with sample selection bias and covariate shift. It has desirable characteristics such as unbiasedness, consistency and low computational complexity. However, weighting can have a detrimental effect on an estimator as well. In this work, we empi…
New estimator stabilizes higher-order influence functions for bilinear forms.
problem Stability issues in estimating bilinear forms using higher-order influence functions.
method Proposes a new stabilized higher-order estimator for a class of bilinear forms without sample splitting.
result New estimator exhibits more stable finite-sample performance compared to the empirical higher-order estimator.
Estimating properties of discrete distributions is a fundamental problem in statistical learning. We design the first unified, linear-time, competitive, property estimator that for a wide class of properties and for all underlying distributions uses just 2n samples to achieve the performance attained by the empirical…