Modified relative universality for unbiasedness and consistency in dimension reduction.
problem Gap in proof of unbiasedness and Fisher consistency in relative universality.
method Modified definition of relative universality using ǫ-measurability.
result Established unbiasedness and Fisher consistency rigorously.
Paper analyzes distributional reinforcement learning with value function approximation, introducing Bellman unbiasedness and a new algorithm.
problem Improving reinforcement learning by capturing environmental stochasticity and addressing infinite dimensionality.
method Introduces Bellman unbiasedness and proposes SF-LSVI algorithm for provably efficient distributional reinforcement learning.
result Achieves a tight regret bound of O(d_E H^3/2 √K) for distributional reinforcement learning.
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…
The estimation of risk measures recently gained a lot of attention, partly because of the backtesting issues of expected shortfall related to elicitability. In this work we shed a new and fundamental light on optimal estimation procedures of risk measures in terms of bias. We show that once the parameters of a model ne…
Variable selection in sparse regression models is an important task as applications ranging from biomedical research to econometrics have shown. Especially for higher dimensional regression problems, for which the link function between response and covariates cannot be directly detected, the selection of informative va…
We study the a.s. convergence of a sequence of random embeddings of a fixed manifold into Euclidean spaces of increasing dimensions. We show that the limit is deterministic. As a consequence, we show that many intrinsic functionals of the embedded manifolds also converge to deterministic limits. Particularly interestin…
Optimal reconciliation keeps some forecasts unchanged in hierarchical forecasting.
problem Keeping some forecasts unchanged in hierarchical forecasting.
method Formulates a method to keep some forecasts unchanged in a hierarchical forecasting system.
result Preserves unbiasedness and non-negativity of forecasts.
This work improves texture segmentation by automatically tuning hyperparameters for Total-Variation.
problem The challenge is to automatically select hyperparameters for Total-Variation texture segmentation.
method The approach involves extending Stein's unbiased gradient estimator to handle correlated Gaussian noise, leading to an automatic tuning method.
result The method provides an automatic way to select hyperparameters for Total-Variation texture segmentation.
In this letter we investigate the information provided by the "compass rose" (Crack, T.F. and Ledoit, O. (1996), Journal of Finance, 51(2), pg. 751-762) patterns revealed in phase portraits of daily stock returns. It has been initially suggested that the compass rose is just a manifestation of price clustering and disc…
We wish to compute the gradient of an expectation over a finite or countably infinite sample space having K≤∞ categories. When K is indeed infinite, or finite but very large, the relevant summation is intractable. Accordingly, various stochastic gradient estimators have been proposed. In this paper, we de…
PEMC uses ML to enhance Monte Carlo simulations, reducing variance and runtime.
problem Computational inefficiency in Monte Carlo simulations for complex tasks.
method Prediction-Enhanced Monte Carlo (PEMC) framework that uses ML surrogates as predictors.
result PEMC provides unbiased evaluations with reduced variance and runtime compared to standard Monte Carlo.
OSIRIS reduces variance in off-policy evaluation by omitting irrelevant states.
problem High variance in importance sampling-based OPE estimators.
method OSIRIS reduces variance by omitting likelihood ratios associated with states irrelevant to return.
result OSIRIS is unbiased and has lower variance than ordinary importance sampling.
We present a new method for conducting Monte Carlo inference in graphical models which combines explicit search with generalized importance sampling. The idea is to reduce the variance of importance sampling by searching for significant points in the target distribution. We prove that it is possible to introduce search…
New algorithms estimate Hessians using random directions for faster stochastic optimization.
problem Efficiently estimating Hessians for stochastic optimization.
method Generalized Hessian estimators using random directions and noisy function measurements.
result Asymptotically unbiased estimators with lower bias for more measurements.
Proposes robust ABC method for outlier detection.
problem Outliers sensitivity in ABC methods.
method γ-divergence estimator with redescending property.
result Significantly higher robustness than existing methods.
QUACKIE creates a new benchmark for NLP interpretability.
problem Evaluating NLP interpretability methods is challenging due to biased ground truths.
method Formulated a custom classification task from question-answering datasets, generating unbiased ground truths.
result Demonstrated the effectiveness of current interpretability methods on the new benchmark.
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…
Study evaluates new models using human feedback from another model.
problem Evaluate a new model using human feedback collected for another model.
method Formalize problem, propose model-based and model-free estimators, analyze unbiasedness, and empirically evaluate.
result Proposed estimators can predict absolute values, rank, and optimize evaluated policies.
This paper proposed a bias-compensated normalized maximum correntropy criterion (BCNMCC) algorithm charactered by its low steady-state misalignment for system identification with noisy input in an impulsive output noise environment. The normalized maximum correntropy criterion (NMCC) is derived from a correntropy based…
The policy gradient approach is a flexible and powerful reinforcement learning method particularly for problems with continuous actions such as robot control. A common challenge in this scenario is how to reduce the variance of policy gradient estimates for reliable policy updates. In this paper, we combine the followi…
We propose Dirichlet Process mixtures of Generalized Linear Models (DP-GLM), a new method of nonparametric regression that accommodates continuous and categorical inputs, and responses that can be modeled by a generalized linear model. We prove conditions for the asymptotic unbiasedness of the DP-GLM regression mean fu…
Proposes Exogenous Matching for efficient counterfactual estimation.
problem Efficient estimation of counterfactual expressions in general settings.
method Transforms variance minimization into conditional distribution learning.
result Outperforms other importance sampling methods in counterfactual estimation.
We propose a scheme for recycling Gaussian random vectors into structured matrices to approximate various kernel functions in sublinear time via random embeddings. Our framework includes the Fastfood construction as a special case, but also extends to Circulant, Toeplitz and Hankel matrices, and the broader family of s…
New method for evaluating sequential recommendations with lower variance.
problem Evaluating good sequences of music, video, news, and e-commerce recommendations.
method Proposes a new counterfactual estimator for sequential reward interactions with lower variance and asymptotic unbiasedness.
result Our method outperforms existing methods in bias and data efficiency for sequential track recommendations.
NQE uses quantile regression for fast SBI with cubic Hermite splines.
problem Efficient Bayesian inference for complex models with limited data.
method Neural Quantile Estimation (NQE) learns quantiles autoregressively and interpolates them using cubic Hermite splines.
result NQE achieves state-of-the-art performance on various benchmark problems.
The balance property is crucial for insurance pricing, ensuring total actuarial price equals loss. Maximum likelihood GLMs fulfill it, but Lindholm-Wüthrich suggests three methods, with constrained GLM being superior.
problem Ensuring the balance property in insurance pricing models
method Using constrained GLM fitting
result Constrained GLM fitting is superior to the two previously discussed balance correction methods
The paper analyzes the randomized midpoint method for Langevin diffusions, revealing biases and asymptotic properties.
problem Analyzing biases and asymptotic properties of the randomized midpoint method for Langevin diffusions.
method Characterization of stationary distribution and asymptotic normality for numerical integration.
result The step-size needs to go to zero for the method to be asymptotically unbiased.
Novel compression method preserves privacy while reducing communication costs.
problem Reducing communication costs in differential privacy mechanisms.
method Poisson private representation (PPR) for compressing and simulating local randomizers.
result Achieves compression within a logarithmic gap from theoretical lower bound.
The paper studies the asymptotic behavior of adversarial training under ℓ∞-perturbation.
problem Theoretical guarantees for sparsity-recovery in adversarial training.
method Investigation of the asymptotic distribution of the adversarial training estimator in generalized linear models.
result The asymptotic distribution of the adversarial training estimator under ℓ∞-perturbation could have a positive probability mass at 0 when the true parameter is 0. New method combines multiple datasets to estimate ATE with valid confidence intervals.
problem Combining multiple observational datasets to estimate ATE with valid confidence intervals.
method Prediction-powered inferences to shrink CIs and provide valid CIs.
result Valid confidence intervals for ATE from multiple datasets.
Paper addresses trade-off between robustness and specificity in machine learning.
problem Combating distributional uncertainties in training data compared to population distributions.
method Unified framework that unifies Bayesian, distributionally robust optimization, and regularization methods.
result Reveals the trade-off between robustness and specificity.
Understanding and developing a correlation measure that can detect general dependencies is not only imperative to statistics and machine learning, but also crucial to general scientific discovery in the big data age. In this paper, we establish a new framework that generalizes distance correlation --- a correlation mea…
DR-MCTS improves decision quality and sample efficiency in complex environments.
problem Improving decision quality and sample efficiency in complex environments.
method Integrates Doubly Robust off-policy estimation into Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS).
result DR-MCTS achieves superior performance in Tic-Tac-Toe and VirtualHome tasks.
The sample mean is among the most well studied estimators in statistics, having many desirable properties such as unbiasedness and consistency. However, when analyzing data collected using a multi-armed bandit (MAB) experiment, the sample mean is biased and much remains to be understood about its properties. For exampl…
Adaptive Multilevel Splitting improves rare event pricing for financial derivatives.
problem Efficient pricing of binary options in rare event regimes with discontinuous payoffs.
method Adaptive Multilevel Splitting (AMS) reformulates rare-event problem as conditional events.
result AMS achieves up to 200-fold improvements over standard Monte Carlo, preserving unbiasedness.
OwMatch improves open-world semi-supervised learning by self-labeling and consistency.
problem Misclassification of unseen classes in open-world semi-supervised learning.
method Conditional self-labeling and open-world hierarchical thresholding.
result OwMatch enhances performance across known and unknown classes.
Proposes MR estimator for unbiased recommendation models.
problem Data biases in recommender systems lead to inaccurate predictions.
method Introduces multiple robust (MR) learning approach combining multiple imputation and propensity models.
result MR estimator achieves unbiasedness when any of the models is accurate.
Cramming method evaluates learned policies from contextual bandits efficiently.
problem Evaluating final learned policies from contextual bandit algorithms.
method On-policy evaluation using a single pass of data, ensuring consistency and asymptotic normality.
result Cramming method reduces evaluation standard error by approximately 40% compared to off-policy methods.
PPAT uses predictions to improve risk estimation in active testing.
problem Exploiting informative predictions from black-box models for efficient risk estimation.
method Combines LURE estimator with prediction-powered control variate.
result PPAT outperforms existing methods in risk estimation and uncertainty quantification.
We present a new algorithm for stochastic variational inference that targets at models with non-differentiable densities. One of the key challenges in stochastic variational inference is to come up with a low-variance estimator of the gradient of a variational objective. We tackle the challenge by generalizing the repa…
New algorithm solves complex optimization problems without needing projections.
problem Optimizing nested functions under convex constraints with noisy evaluations.
method Projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization.
result The algorithm achieves ε-stationary solutions with complexity bounds independent of ε and T. Locally private online quantile regression method addresses privacy constraints.
problem Estimating and inferring quantile regression under local differential privacy constraints.
method Developed a finite-alphabet channel where users compute local contributions, apply randomized response, and send reports. A public decoder corrects distortion and reconstructs inputs for averaging.
result Established local privacy, decoder unbiasedness, consistency, asymptotic normality, and inference for scalar contrasts.
Paper proposes methods to use observational data for reinforcement learning, addressing confounding issues.
problem Using observational data for reinforcement learning can lead to misleading outcomes due to unobserved confounders.
method The paper introduces two deconfounding methods in deep reinforcement learning to adjust for confounders.
result The proposed deconfounding methods improve the accuracy of reinforcement learning models using observational data.
Measures policy-violating content prevalence with ML-assisted sampling and LLM labeling.
problem Accurate measurement of content violations that are often rare and costly to label.
method Design-based measurement system using ML-assisted probability sampling and LLM labeling.
result Produces unbiased prevalence estimates with confidence intervals and dashboard drilldowns.
Combines neural networks with splitting-up method for filtering equations.
problem Approximating the solution of filtering equations for signal processes.
method Combines splitting-up method with neural networks.
result Produces an approximation of the unnormalised conditional distribution.
Corrects bias in random sampling matrices for improved ML methods.
problem Inversion bias in random sampling matrices hampers ML applications.
method Corrects inversion bias for various random sampling methods.
result Establishes local convergence rates for sub-sampled Newton methods.
Proposes QMC-based QSW for 3D SW distance.
problem Intractable SW distance in 3D.
method Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) for QSW approximations.
result QMC-based QSW improves SW estimation.
Paper estimates FPR of Bayes classifier using soft labels.
problem Determining optimal classifier performance.
method Uses soft labels and denoising technique.
result Consistent and unbiased FPR estimator developed.