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0 votes
1 answer
339 views

Expectations, double integrals and Jensen's inequality

$\def\anonfunc#1{#1(\cdot)}$Consider two random variables distributed $v\sim \anonfunc G$ and $c \sim \anonfunc F$ with pdfs $\anonfunc g$ and $\anonfunc f$. Let the supports of $c$ and $v$ be $[x,y]$....
2 votes
1 answer
222 views

Does the inequality $\mu F(\mu)^2\geq \int_{\mu}^{b}F(x)\cdot(1-F(x))\,\mathrm dx$ hold for compactly supported continuous random variables?

This question was originally asked on the Mathematics StackExchange by User smcc Consider a continuous random variable $V$ with cumulative distribution function $F$ and density function $f$. Suppose ...
18 votes
3 answers
3k views

Entropy and total variation distance

Let $X$, $Y$ be discrete random variables taking values within the same set of $N$ elements. Let the total variation distance $|P-Q|$ (which is half the $L_1$ distance between the distributions of $P$ ...
5 votes
0 answers
205 views

Strange inequality relating Binomial pmf and cdf

I'm encountering a strange inequality I need to prove, relating the Binomial pmf and cdf. Suppose we have $n$ coin flips, and fix an arbitrary $k \le n/2$ heads. Suppose further that we have some ...
16 votes
6 answers
3k views

A normal distribution inequality

Let $n(x) := \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}} e^{-\frac{x^2}{2}}$, and $N(x) := \int_{-\infty}^x n(t)dt$. I have plotted the curves of the both sides of the following inequality. The graph shows that the ...
3 votes
1 answer
364 views

Can anyone give a reference to the proof of this concentration inequality?

The following concentration inequality for the supremum of a Gaussian process indexed by a separable metric space appears here: http://math.iisc.ac.in/~manju/GP/6-Concentration%20and%20comparison%...
2 votes
1 answer
78 views

Existence of stationary stochastic processes with very high correlation

A question was recently asked by a new user, SomeoneHAHA, and then deleted by the user, after receiving an answer. I think the question and the answer (QA) to it may be of interest to some users. ...
2 votes
1 answer
248 views

Ratio of expectation involving random unit vectors

Let $u=(u_1,...,u_n), v=(v_1,...,v_n)$ be two random vectors independently and uniformly distributed on the unit sphere in $\mathbb{R}^n$. Define two other random variables $X=\sum_{i=1}^nu_i^2v_i^2$, ...
2 votes
1 answer
675 views

Moment generating function of random unit vector

Let $X$ be uniformly distributed on the unit sphere $S^{n-1}$. Is there any result concerning the calculation or bound (particularly lower bound) of $$\mathbb{E}[\exp(X^Tv)]$$ for any $v$?
1 vote
0 answers
98 views

Joint distribution of two weighted sums of IID random variables

Let $X_1, X_2, \dots$ be independently uniformly distributed random variables in $\{-1, +1\}$ and let $a_1, b_1,a_2,b_2, \ldots \in \mathbb{R}$ be fixed, bounded and of non-zero average. Let $Y_n=...
5 votes
2 answers
185 views

Density near at $0$ for the integral of the positive part of the Brownian motion

This question was asked recently on MO and then deleted by the owner, user Aalon. I think the question deserves to be answered, which is what I will try to do here. Aalon was reading this paper, where ...
2 votes
1 answer
280 views

Complicated bound after using Stirling's approximation

I have this inequality $$\frac{1}{a}\exp\bigl\{-\frac{4}{h^2}\bigr\} \geq \frac{1}{f}$$ where $$ a \leq \Bigl(\pi^{d/2}\Gamma(\frac{1}{2}d+1)^{-1} + 1\Bigr) \left(\frac{h^{d+1}}{2} \Gamma \left(\frac{...
3 votes
2 answers
189 views

Is the covariance of squares always bounded from below by two times the covariance?

I came across the following inequality in one of my calculations ($X,Y$ are centered random variables): $$\operatorname{E}(X^2Y^2)-\operatorname{E}(X^2)\operatorname{E}(Y^2) \geq 2 \operatorname{E}(...
-1 votes
1 answer
76 views

Transforming random variables for having good property?

For arbitrary functions $A$ and $B$ and independent random variables $X$ and $Y$, assume that \begin{align} \Omega&\triangleq \{(x,y): A(x,y)=1\},\\ \Lambda&\triangleq \{x: B(x)=1\}. \end{...
6 votes
4 answers
1k views

Improvement of Chernoff bound in Binomial case

We know from Chernoff bound $P\bigg(X \leq (\frac{1}{2}-\epsilon)N\bigg)\leq e^{-2\epsilon^2 N}$ where $X$ follows Binomial($N, \frac{1}{2}$). If I take $N=1000, \epsilon=0.01$, the upper bound is ...
1 vote
2 answers
462 views

lower bound the probability of at least L collisions

Lets say we get a list $M$ containing $|M|=\sqrt{L\cdot N}$ randomly and independtly drawn elements from a set of size $N$. And lets denote the $i$-th element of the list $M$ by $M[i]$. If we now ask ...
3 votes
1 answer
209 views

Log concavity of the maximum of dependent Gaussians

Let $Z_1,\dots,Z_n$ be dependent Gaussian random variables. Is it true that $X=\max\{Z_1,\dots,Z_n\}$ has a log-concave distribution function? This is true for the independent case, but is it true in ...
0 votes
1 answer
213 views

Show that interval of maximum probability grows no faster than $\sqrt{n}$ for binomial distribution

Let $X \sim \text{Binom}(n, p)$ a binomial random variable. I want to show that : $$\forall 0 < t < 0.9, \quad \exists C, \quad \forall n >1, \quad \mathbb P\bigg(|X-np| \leq C\sqrt{n}\bigg) \...
1 vote
1 answer
499 views

property of iid random variable

Let $ (\xi_i)_{i \ge 1} $ be independent identically distributed random variables, taking values in $ (1,3]$. Can we show: $P( \exists N \in \mathbb{N}, \text{ s.t. } \forall k \ge 0, \prod_{i=1}^{...
2 votes
1 answer
598 views

Cantelli's inequality: the original source

Does anyone know where and when Cantelli's inequality was originally published? Strangely enough, I have not been able to find this information online.
8 votes
2 answers
4k views

Lower bounds on Kullback-Leibler divergence

This was originally a question on Cross Validated. Are there any (nontrivial) lower bounds on the Kullback-Leibler divergence $KL(f\Vert g)$ between two measures / densities? Informally, I am ...
1 vote
0 answers
376 views

Anti-concentration bounds for folded normal and inverse of gaussian variables

Are there any easy to use bounds on sums of the following kind : $$ \sum_{i = 1}^{i = N} |a_i| \geq P \\ a_i \sim \mathcal{N}(0, 1) \\ $$ and also for sums of the form : $$ \sum_{i = 1}^{i = M} \...
1 vote
1 answer
249 views

On concentration of a sum random variable

Take a random variable defined as $$r=u_{11}v_{1}v_{1}+u_{12}v_{1}v_{2}+\dots+u_{n,n-1}v_{n}v_{n-1}+u_{nn}v_{n}v_{n}$$ where $v_{i}$ are independent uniform random variables from $\{0,\dots,b\}$, $u_{...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Is there a universal bound for this ratio of expectations?

Let $X$ and $Y$ be two zero-mean independent and identically distributed random variables. Is there a bound for the following ratio, $$\frac{\mathbb{E}[|X+Y|]}{\mathbb{E}[|X|+|Y|]}=\frac{\mathbb{E}[|...
0 votes
0 answers
141 views

Effect of partitioning the realizations of random variables on the total variation distance?

Let $X$ and $Y$ be two random variables with joint pmf $p(x,y)=p(x)\cdot p(y|x)$ and $X$ has uniform distribution. Also assume that the following relation is satisfied: \begin{align} \lVert p(y|x)-p(y)...
2 votes
1 answer
271 views

How to compute bounding coefficients for McDiarmid's inequality?

I am trying to understand the proof in Sec. A2 of Gretton et al.. To make the question self-contained, I summarize below the key ingredients. At the end of the post, I state my question. Given a ...
6 votes
2 answers
735 views

Negative probabilities - what are two ordinary pgfs that correspond to the gf of a half-coin?

In Half of a Coin: Negative Probabilities, author considers pgf of a fair coin represented by random variable, $X = 1_H$: $$G_X(z) = E[z^X] = \sum_{x=0,1} z^xP(X=x) = (z^0)(1/2) + (z^1)(1/2) = \frac{...
1 vote
2 answers
4k views

Variance of truncated normal distribution

Let $ X \sim \mathcal{N} ( \mu, \sigma^2 ) $, $ - \infty \leqslant a < b \leqslant +\infty $ ($ a, b \ne \infty $ simultaneously) and $ Y $ has a truncated normal distribution on $ (a, b )$, i.e. $...
1 vote
1 answer
125 views

A differential inequality and a special value

Let $G \colon [0,1] \to [0,1]$ be a monotonically decreasing function with $G(0) = 1$ and $G(1) = 0$. Suppose that $G$ is differentiable infinitely many times, and that: $$G(x)G''(X) \leq 2{G'(x)}^2.$$...
4 votes
0 answers
1k views

Total variation and Hellinger distance inequality between truncated Gaussians

We know that the total variation distance, $d_{TV}(P,Q) = \frac{1}{2}\left|\left|P-Q\right|\right|_1$, between any two distributions $P$ and $Q$ is lower bounded by their squared Hellinger distance, $...
1 vote
0 answers
171 views

An inequality for moments of a random variable

I'm interested in a class C of $R^1$-valued random variables $\xi$ which satisfy an inequality of the type $$ (1) \qquad E|\xi|^p \leq F(E|\xi|^2), $$ where $p>2$, $F$ is a certain non-...
1 vote
1 answer
478 views

Distance between the product of marginal distributions and the joint distribution

Given a joint distribution $P(A,B,C)$, we can compute various marginal distributions. Now suppose: \begin{align} P1(A,B,C) &= P(A) P(B) P(C) \\ P2(A,B,C) &= P(A,B) P(C) \\ P3(A,B,C) &= P(...
3 votes
0 answers
104 views

Minimizing/Maximizing the tail of the convex combinations of Chi Squared i.i.d random variables

Consider $N$ i.i.d random variables, $X_{1}, X_{2}, \ldots, X_{N}$ , that are chi-squared of degree $K \geq 2$. Also consider the following 3 vectors: \begin{eqnarray*} \bar{a} &=& (\frac{1}{...

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