This work improves deep neural network probability estimation methods.
problem Estimating probabilities from high-dimensional data with inherent uncertainty.
method Investigates and compares methods for probability estimation using deep neural networks, proposing a new method that promotes consistent probabilities.
result The new method outperforms existing approaches on most metrics on simulated and real-world data.
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.
We study the minimax optimal rates for estimating a range of Integral Probability Metrics (IPMs) between two unknown probability measures, based on n independent samples from them. Curiously, we show that estimating the IPM itself between probability measures, is not significantly easier than estimating the probabili…
The law of total probability may be deployed in binary classification exercises to estimate the unconditional class probabilities if the class proportions in the training set are not representative of the population class proportions. We argue that this is not a conceptually sound approach and suggest an alternative ba…
Sharp bounds for high-probability estimation of discrete distributions.
problem Estimating discrete distributions with high probability under χ2-divergence. method Sharp upper and lower bounds for the classical Laplace estimator, and characterization of minimax high-probability risk for any estimator.
result Sharp bounds for high-probability estimation of discrete distributions can be achieved through a simple smoothing strategy.
New linear algorithms improve wSVMs for multiclass probability estimation.
problem Estimating conditional probabilities for multiclass problems.
method Proposed baseline learning and OVA learning schemes to improve wSVMs.
result Linear algorithms achieve optimal computational efficiency and good estimation accuracy.
Discussing new econophysics methods for volatility and probability density estimation.
problem Estimating volatility and probability densities in econophysics.
method Reviewing recent methods for volatility and probability density estimation.
result Pioneering methods for volatility and probability density estimation in econophysics.
One of the central themes in the classification task is the estimation of class posterior probability at a new point x. The vast majority of classifiers output a score for x, which is monotonically related to the posterior probability via an unknown relationship. There are many attempts in the literature …
The paper addresses probability calibration for incomplete sequences.
problem Improving probability estimates from incomplete sequences.
method Adapting traditional calibration techniques to sequences of varying lengths.
result Proposed methods improve probability calibration for modern sequential models.
In this work we investigate to which extent one can recover class probabilities within the empirical risk minimization (ERM) paradigm. The main aim of our paper is to extend existing results and emphasize the tight relations between empirical risk minimization and class probability estimation. Based on existing literat…
Proposes novel wSVMs for sparse learning and accurate probability estimation.
problem Sparse features with redundant noise limit the performance of existing wSVMs.
method Develops ℓ1-norm and elastic net regularized wSVMs for automatic variable selection and probability estimation. result Elastic net regularized wSVMs achieve superior performance in variable selection and probability estimation.
OPAA estimates probability densities using functional analysis.
problem Estimating probability density functions efficiently and accurately.
method OPAA uses a parallelizable algorithm based on functional analysis to estimate probability distributions.
result OPAA provides an efficient method to estimate probability density functions and normalizing weights.
Improved bounds for discrete probability distribution estimation under the ℓ∞ norm.
problem Estimating discrete probability distributions under the ℓ∞ norm with improved bounds.
method Minimax bounds in expectation and high-probability tail bounds.
result Resolved open questions posed in Kontorovich and Painsky (JMLR, 2025), including a fully empirical tightest risk bound and identifying the worst-case extremal distribution.
Paper improves tree probability estimation using stochastic optimization and variance reduction.
problem Improving tree probability estimation in phylogenetic inference.
method Introduces computationally efficient methods for training SBNs and variance reduction for optimization.
result Methods outperform previous baseline methods in tree topology probability estimation and Bayesian phylogenetic inference.
This work assesses DNNs for estimating conditional probabilities.
problem Lack of uncertainty characterization in DNNs for probabilistic applications.
method Investigates DNNs' ability to estimate conditional probabilities using synthetic and real-world datasets.
result DNNs' precision in estimating conditional probabilities is influenced by probability density and inter-categorical sparsity.
Conventional multiclass conditional probability estimation methods, such as Fisher's discriminate analysis and logistic regression, often require restrictive distributional model assumption. In this paper, a model-free estimation method is proposed to estimate multiclass conditional probability through a series of cond…
Obtaining accurate and well calibrated probability estimates from classifiers is useful in many applications, for example, when minimising the expected cost of classifications. Existing methods of calibrating probability estimates are applied globally, ignoring the potential for improvements by applying a more fine-gra…
New method estimates and samples high-dimensional probability distributions avoiding optimization and approximation curse.
problem Estimating high-dimensional probability distributions from data samples.
method Hierarchic probability flow from coarse to fine scales, defined by conditional probabilities across scales.
result Sampling hierarchic models avoids critical slowing down at phase transitions and generates turbulence and dark matter images.
Method estimates joint probability density from samples using low-rank decomposition and random projections.
problem Estimating joint probability density from limited samples.
method Low-rank tensor decomposition, dictionaries, and Radon transforms.
result Algorithm outperforms previous methods in estimating synthetic probability densities.
New method for estimating median and mean with high probability privacy.
problem Estimating median and mean with differential privacy.
method Propose, Test, Release (PTR) mechanism with concentration inequalities.
result First sub-Gaussian high probability bounds for differentially private median and mean estimation.
Improves probability estimates for small datasets in multi-class problems.
problem Inaccurate probability estimates in classification tasks, especially on small datasets.
method Introduced Data Generation and Grouping algorithm to improve calibration on small datasets, then applied to multi-class problems.
result Calibration error can be decreased using the proposed approach.
A key prerequisite to optimal reasoning under uncertainty in intelligent systems is to start with good class probability estimates. This paper improves on the current best probability estimation trees (Bagged-PETs) and also presents a new ensemble-based algorithm (MOB-ESP). Comparisons are made using several benchmark …
The paper proposes an efficient method for estimating ATEs using adaptive experiments.
problem Estimating average treatment effects (ATEs) with minimal sample size and high accuracy.
method The paper defines and uses the efficient treatment-assignment probability to sequentially assign treatments, estimating ATEs using an Adaptive Augmented Inverse Probability Weighting (A2IPW) estimator.
result The proposed experimental design and A2IPW estimator achieve the minimized semiparametric efficiency bound and provide anytime valid confidence intervals for early stopping.
New algorithms estimate and test collision probability with near-optimal sample complexity.
problem Estimating and testing collision probability in discrete distributions.
method Developed algorithms for (α,β)-local differential privacy and sequential testing. result Achieved nearly optimal sample complexity for estimating and testing collision probability.
We present a novel procedure for scaling relatively high frequency tail probability and quantile estimates for the conditional distribution of returns.
Recent research has made significant progress on the problem of bounding log partition functions for exponential family graphical models. Such bounds have associated dual parameters that are often used as heuristic estimates of the marginal probabilities required in inference and learning. However these variational est…
We study the minimax optimal rate for estimating the Wasserstein-1 metric between two unknown probability measures based on n i.i.d. empirical samples from them. We show that estimating the Wasserstein metric itself between probability measures, is not significantly easier than estimating the probability measures u…
We develop importance sampling based efficient simulation techniques for three commonly encountered rare event probabilities associated with random walks having i.i.d. regularly varying increments; namely, 1) the large deviation probabilities, 2) the level crossing probabilities, and 3) the level crossing probabilities…
Estimating a constrained relation is a fundamental problem in machine learning. Special cases are classification (the problem of estimating a map from a set of to-be-classified elements to a set of labels), clustering (the problem of estimating an equivalence relation on a set) and ranking (the problem of estimating a …
A random forest is a popular tool for estimating probabilities in machine learning classification tasks. However, the means by which this is accomplished is unprincipled: one simply counts the fraction of trees in a forest that vote for a certain class. In this paper, we forge a connection between random forests and ke…
We introduce Fisher consistency in the sense of unbiasedness as a desirable property for estimators of class prior probabilities. Lack of Fisher consistency could be used as a criterion to dismiss estimators that are unlikely to deliver precise estimates in test datasets under prior probability and more general dataset…
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.
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.
The softmax representation of probabilities for categorical variables plays a prominent role in modern machine learning with numerous applications in areas such as large scale classification, neural language modeling and recommendation systems. However, softmax estimation is very expensive for large scale inference bec…
New nonparametric estimators improve causal effect estimation.
problem Estimation of causal effects with selection bias.
method Undersmoothing of the highly adaptive lasso for estimating the weighting mechanism.
result Asymptotic efficiency and convergence to nonparametric efficiency bound.
The Wasserstein metric is an important measure of distance between probability distributions, with applications in machine learning, statistics, probability theory, and data analysis. This paper provides upper and lower bounds on statistical minimax rates for the problem of estimating a probability distribution under W…
Active Kriging Monte Carlo simulation method with conformal certification for failure probability estimation
problem Failure probability estimation in structural reliability analysis
method Active learning framework with conformal prediction
result Improved uncertainty quantification and reliability of failure probability estimates
Paper improves VaR risk allocation by avoiding zero probability events.
problem Computing VaR contributions for zero probability events.
method Reformulates Euler contributions to a ratio of conditional expectations with strictly positive probability events.
result Proposed estimator outperforms standard Monte Carlo methods in bias and variance.
New insights on active sequential prediction for mean estimation.
problem Active sequential prediction-powered mean estimation problem.
method Combining uncertainty-based suggestion with a constant probability, analyzing non-asymptotic bounds, and using no-regret learning.
result The optimal query probability is close to the constraint when using no-regret learning.
NOFIS uses normalizing flows to estimate rare event probabilities more efficiently.
problem Accurate estimation of rare event probabilities using conventional methods is inefficient and resource-intensive.
method NOFIS learns a sequence of proposal distributions by minimizing KL divergence losses and estimates rare event probability using importance sampling.
result NOFIS outperforms baseline approaches in estimating rare event probabilities across 10 distinct test cases.
DoSE improves OOD detection by estimating model probability density.
problem Poor specificity of model likelihoods for OOD detection.
method DoSE uses density of states concept to avoid direct model probability comparison.
result DoSE achieves state-of-the-art performance on OOD detection benchmarks.
Focal loss improves classification but not class-posterior probability estimation.
problem Improving class-posterior probability estimation from focal loss.
method Proved classification-calibration and derived a transformation to recover true class-posterior probabilities.
result A transformation of the confidence score from focal loss minimization allows recovery of true class-posterior probabilities.
Estimates joint probability distribution from 1-way marginals using low-rank tensors and random projections.
problem Nonparametric estimation of joint probability mass function (PMF) from limited data.
method Low-rank tensor decomposition and random projections to link data to PMF estimation.
result Estimates joint density from 1-way marginals using transformed space and novel algorithm.
Novel approach for estimating joint probability densities using tensor decompositions and dictionaries.
problem Estimating joint probability densities of mixed discrete and continuous variables.
method Low-rank tensor decomposition combined with dictionary learning.
result Better classification and lower error rates compared to existing methods.
We study the problem of supervised learning for both binary and multiclass classification from a unified geometric perspective. In particular, we propose a geometric regularization technique to find the submanifold corresponding to a robust estimator of the class probability P(y∣x). The regularization term meas…
We present a continuous-time maximum likelihood estimation methodology for credit rating transition probabilities, taking into account the presence of censored data. We perform rolling estimates of the transition matrices with exponential time weighting with varying horizons and discuss the underlying dynamics of trans…
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…
The study optimizes distribution estimation from samples with relative entropy error, adapting to sparse distributions.
problem Estimating discrete distributions with high-probability accuracy in relative entropy.
method Analysis of Laplace estimator and confidence-dependent smoothing techniques, including data-dependent smoothing.
result Optimal high-probability risk bounds for various estimators, including a new data-dependent smoothing method.