All Questions
Tagged with pr.probability st.statistics
1,134 questions
2
votes
0
answers
87
views
A complex problem involving densities (likelihood functions) and optimization
Consider the following autoregressive process with normal errors:
\begin{equation}\label{7YlUV4i8nuO}\tag{I}
y_t = \phi y_{t-1}+ u_t, \quad u_t \overset{iid}{\sim} N(0,\sigma^2)
\end{equation}
We ...
- 13
1
vote
1
answer
56
views
Covariance inequality for left skewed distributions
Consider a left skewed random variable $X$ with mean $1$, median $>1$ and support on $[0,2)$. Suppose we have a class of functions $\mathbf{G}$ and each of it's members satisfy $G(x): [0,\infty) ...
- 128k
32
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Bayesian statistics for pure mathematicians
Could someone please recommend reading on Bayesian statistics presented from a pure mathematical point of view? That is, works that start assuming a good knowledge of measure theoretic probability. ...
- 113
0
votes
1
answer
327
views
Deduce that a function is zero on interval $[0,M]$
I have been thinking about this for the last few days but I was not able to produce a definitive answer.
Take an integrable function $g$ that maps in $\mathbb{R}$ and with domain contained in $[0,M]$ (...
- 141
4
votes
0
answers
309
views
When is $\prod_{i=0}^\infty (I-x_i x_i^T)=0$ for zero-centered Gaussian $x_i$?
Suppose $x_i\in \mathbb{R}^d$ is sampled IID from $\mathcal{N}(0,H)$. Let $A_i=(I-x_i x_i^T)$ and assume $d$ is large. What are necessary conditions for the following to converge with probability 1?
$...
- 2,252
1
vote
1
answer
86
views
Is the main part of certain exponential family sub-Gaussian?
$X$ is in the form of exponential family i.e.
$$\mathbb{P_\theta}x = h(x)e^{\langle \theta,T(x)\rangle-\phi(\theta)}$$
where $\theta\in \mathbb{R}^d$. If $\nabla\phi(\theta)$ is L-Lipschitz i.e.
$$\...
- 128k
0
votes
1
answer
198
views
Spectral norm of matrices of bounded random variables
Assume $A\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ with each entry being i.i.d. bounded r.v. in $[a,b]$, is $\Vert A\Vert_2$ is sub-Gaussian?
Intuitively, since $\{A_{ij}\}_{i,j=1,...,n}$ is bounded, then
$$\Vert A ...
- 204
2
votes
2
answers
323
views
Continuity of Nash equilibrium for a family of games
The question may be too vague, but ultimately in search of various (counter)examples or theorems to exhibit the following:
Do continuous families $t\mapsto G_t$ of "games" (say each $G_t$ is ...
- 745
2
votes
1
answer
462
views
Converse of the Herbst argument?
Background
For a real-valued random variable $X$, define its entropy by $H(X) = E[\phi(X)] - \phi(E[X])$, where $\phi(u) = u \log u$.
It can be shown that, if the entropy satisfies the bound
$$
H(e^{\...
- 163
2
votes
1
answer
909
views
Can we use Bernstein's inequality without knowledge of variance?
I have a question about Bernstein’s inequality for bounded random variables.
Its statement is the following. Let $X_1, \ldots, X_N$ be independent, mean zero random variables with $|X_i| \leq K \ (i = ...
CommunityBot
- 1
2
votes
1
answer
415
views
Bounding Kullback-Leibler
Suppose we have a probability distribution $P$ on a finite set $S$. We draw $N$ i.i.d. samples according to $P$ and use these samples to define an empirical distribution $R$. We measure the Kullback-...
- 2,183
0
votes
2
answers
261
views
What mathematical formalism might be used to disprove natural selection, on the basis that there are too many independent genetic parameters? [closed]
I have nagging doubts that the random genetic mutation process of natural selection is sufficient to explain evolution, even when coupled with sexual selection (Darwin proposed that evolution is ...
4
votes
1
answer
258
views
When is $\prod_{i=0}^\infty (I-x_i x_i^T)=0$ for isotropic Gaussian $x_i$?
Suppose $x_i$ is sampled IID from isotropic zero-centered Gaussian random variable in $d$ dimensions with covariance $\Sigma=c*I$. When is the following true with probability 1?
$$\prod_{i=0}^\infty (...
- 128k
0
votes
1
answer
161
views
Analogues of Kac-Bernstein characterisation theorem for non-normal distributions
Let $X,Y$ be two independent random variables.
The Kac-Bernstein theorem states that if $X+Y,X-Y$ are also independent, then $X,Y$ are Normal.
Are there analogues of this theorem for non-normal, ...
- 128k
0
votes
0
answers
60
views
Norms of Wigner matrices under power law decay
Suppose $\Sigma=\operatorname{diag}(h)$ where $h=(1^{-p},2^{-p},3^{-p},\ldots,d^{-p})$ and $p> 1$
$X$ is a matrix with $b$ rows sampled independently from $\operatorname{Normal}(0,\Sigma)$
Suppose $...
- 2,252
1
vote
2
answers
2k
views
Upper bound about Gaussian tail bound
From the definition of sub-Gaussian distribution $X$ w.r.t. $\sigma$ i.e.
$$\mathbb{P}(|X-\mathbb{E}(X)|\geq t) \leq 2 \exp(-\frac{t^2}{2\sigma^2}).$$
It's natural that when $X \sim \mathcal{N}(\mu, \...
- 5,474
0
votes
0
answers
78
views
Kernel density estimation is sub-gaussian
Let $X_1, ..., X_n$ be i.i.d. samples drawn from a pdf $f(x)$ on the real line. The kernel density estimator is defined as follows,
$$\hat{f_n}(x) = \frac{1}{nh}\sum_1^n K(\frac{x-X_k}{h})$$
where $K:\...
- 81
14
votes
1
answer
3k
views
How is the "conformal prediction" conformal?
The question is clarified by Prof.V.Vovk. See his answer below for discussion.
Recently, early works of Gammerman, Vanpnik and Vovk[4] are rediscovered by Wasserman et.al[1] and proposed it as a ...
- 2,600
1
vote
0
answers
124
views
Using projections to determine equidistribution
Suppose I have a collection of points on $\mathbb{S}^{n-1} \subset \mathbb{R}^n.$ I want to know that they are equidistributed (if you want to be more precise, you have a sequence of such collections, ...
- 96.4k
3
votes
0
answers
93
views
Asymptotic approximation of Fisher information matrix for small Gaussian perturbation
Let
$$
X=Y/a+b+\epsilon Z,
$$
where $Y\sim\operatorname{Poisson}(\lambda)$ and $Z\sim\mathcal N(0,1)$ are independent. Also define $\theta=(\lambda,a,b,\epsilon)$. The Fisher information matrix
$$
...
5
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Multidimensional Berry–Esseen for probability density functions
This is a follow up to this recent question: Berry Esseen type result for probability density functions
There exists a multidimensional version of the usual Berry–Esseen theorem (for cumulative ...
- 1,446
3
votes
2
answers
505
views
Precise asymptotics for moments of order statistics of normal distribution
Let $X_1, \cdots, X_n \sim N(0,1)$ be i.i.d. normal random variates. I am interested in understanding the first two moments of the quasi-range $X_{(n)}-X_{(n-1)}$ (i.e., the maximum value minus the ...
- 128k
2
votes
0
answers
62
views
Probability bounds of some ranked version of Dirichlet distribution
Recently I have come across a distribution defined on the open ranked simplex $\nabla^{n-1}_+ = \{\vec x \in \mathbb{R}^n:\sum_{k=1}^n x_k =1, x_1 \geq x_2 \geq \cdots \geq x_n > 0\}$, whose ...
- 21
9
votes
1
answer
723
views
Popular mistakes in probability
$\DeclareMathOperator\Var{Var}\DeclareMathOperator\Bern{Bern}\DeclareMathOperator\Pois{Pois}$Question: What not-trivial mistakes do students often make when solving problems in probability theory, ...
- 12.9k
0
votes
1
answer
177
views
Under which conditions Mean Square Continuity implies Sample Continuity for Gaussian Processes?
First, let us give the setting.
Let $(\Omega, \Sigma, \mathbf{P})$ be a probability space, let $T$ be some interval of time, and let $X: T \times \Omega \rightarrow S$ be a stochastic process.
By Mean ...
- 5,474
0
votes
1
answer
218
views
Is the unconditional variance of a RV an upper bound for the variance of any conditional expectation of the RV?
Let $X$ and $Y$ be continuous random variables with finite first and second moments. Then, is it true that $Var[X]\geq Var[E(X|Y)]$?
- 284
3
votes
2
answers
247
views
Exact simulation of a large sample histogram
Say I want to create a histogram of $N$ random points from some simple compactly supported distribution on $\mathbb{R}$, where $N$ is very large, say $N = 10^{30}$. The histogram has $K$ disjoint bins,...
- 4,219
4
votes
1
answer
168
views
Existence of copula bound pointwise strictly smaller than the Fréchet-Hoeffding upper bound
Consider bivariate copulas $C_1$ and $C_2$ with $\max\{C_1(u,v), C_2(u,v)\}< M_2(u,v)$ for all $u,v \in(0,1)$, where $M_2(u,v) := \min\{u,v\}$ is the Fréchet-Hoeffding upper bound.
Is there a ...
- 128k
1
vote
1
answer
93
views
An inequality relating $\ell_1$ distance of input and output of a Markov krnel
Let $K$ be a Markov kernel from $\mathcal{X}$ to $\mathcal{Y}$, i.e., $K(\cdot|x)$ is a probability measure on $\mathcal{Y}$ for all $x\in \mathcal{X}$.
Let $\mu$ and $\nu$ be two probability measures ...
- 17k
2
votes
1
answer
351
views
Lower bound on sum of independent heavy-tailed random variables
I have a sum of $n$ i.i.d random variables $X_i$ such that $E[X_i] = 0$,$\mathrm{E}[|X_i|^{1 + \delta}]$ exists for some $0 < \delta < 1$ but $\mathrm{E}[|X_i|^{1 + \delta+ \epsilon}]$ does not ...
- 61.9k
2
votes
1
answer
122
views
Justification of the use of residual plot
$\DeclareMathOperator\Cov{Cov}$Backround of my Question
Let $Y$ be the response variable, $\mathbb{X}$ be the explanatory variables. The ultimate goal of prediction is finding a function $f^{*}$ that ...
- 63.9k
0
votes
1
answer
59
views
Given positive $\epsilon$ and $c$, find a density $\phi$ such that $t\phi(\epsilon/t) \ge c \|\phi'\|_\infty$ for all positive $t$
A nice density (on $\mathbb R$) is function $\phi:\mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ such that
(1) $\phi(x) \ge 0$ for all $x \in \mathbb R$,
(2) $\int_{-\infty}^\infty \phi(x) \mathrm{d}x = 1$,
(3) $\phi$ is ...
- 128k
6
votes
1
answer
248
views
Violating an order statistic inequality?
[Edit: for posterity, I'm adding two small comments to the code explaining how to fix it, in light of Iosef Pinelis' answer below. Look for "Should be:" to find the corrections.]
Suppose we ...
- 3,979
2
votes
1
answer
185
views
Bayes risk of binary classification problem with conditionally independent covariates
In the setting of this problem, $\eta(\vec{x})$ is $P(Y=1|\vec{X}=\vec{x})$, $Y \in \{0,1\}$, and $X \in R^d$. Being the true probability know, the classification rule is simply $\eta(\vec{x})>0.5 \...
- 4,219
0
votes
0
answers
29
views
k-means errors for a block Gaussian vector
Consider a standard centered Gaussian vector $(X_1,...,X_n)$ with an approximate block structure, i.e. there is $q$ and a partition of $\{1,...,n\}$ in $q$ classes such that if $i,j$ are in the same ...
- 63.9k
1
vote
0
answers
48
views
Sample complexity of estimating a doubly stochastic matrix
Let $P\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ be a doubly-stochastic matrix. That is:
$$P(x,y)\geq 0,\quad \sum_xP(x,y)=1,\quad \sum_yP(x,y)=1.$$
I would like to know if lower and upper bounds on the sample ...
- 111
2
votes
2
answers
254
views
Nice way to parametrize a bunch of non-independent discrete random variables
I'm looking for a "nice" way to parametrize the joint distribution of multiple, possibly correlated discrete random variables on {0,1}. Even for N=2, there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to do it. ...
- 63.9k
1
vote
1
answer
199
views
Rademacher complexity for a family of bounded, nondecreasing functions?
Let $\{\phi_k\}_{k=1}^K$ be a family of functions mapping from an interval $[a, b]$ to $[-1, 1]$.
That is, $\phi_k \colon[ a,b] \to [-1, 1]$ are nondecreasing maps on some finite interval $[a, b] \...
- 420
3
votes
2
answers
348
views
General version of $d$-separation
I find the $d$-separation criterion (see, e.g., Theorem 2 here; note however the preceding definition, which basically means we are treating discrete random variables) a really useful sufficient ...
- 6,406
2
votes
1
answer
1k
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Bootstrapping and the central limit theorem
I have been looking into bootstrapping lately and although I believe to have understood the basic process somewhat, I am fuzzy on the mathematical details. I will begin with my understanding of what ...
- 128k
4
votes
1
answer
626
views
How to get the lower bound of the following $\tau$?
Let $A=\{a_{ij}\}_{1\le i,j\le n}$ be an $n$ by $n$ normalized Gaussian random matrix with $E[a_{ij}]=0$ and $E[a_{ij}^2]=1/n$. Ordering its eigenvalues by $\lambda_1\le \lambda_2\le \cdots \lambda_n$ ...
- 288
15
votes
2
answers
5k
views
What areas of algebra could be interesting to probability theorists?
I would like to find some topic of algebra (beyond linear algebra; algebraic number theory is fine) that would be interesting both to a student that wants to specialize in probability theory and to me ...
CommunityBot
- 1
2
votes
2
answers
228
views
Minimal conditions on random vector $X \in R^n$ to ensure that $\lim_{t\to 0^+}\sup_{\|w\|_p = 1}\sup_{u \in \mathbb R}\mathbb P(|X'w-u| \le t)=0$
Let $X$ be a random variable on $\mathbb R^n$ and let $S_p^n := \{w \in \mathbb R^n \mid \|w\|_p = 1\}$ be the unit-sphere w.r.t to the $\ell_p$-norm in $\mathbb R^n$. We will be particularly ...
- 5,474
13
votes
5
answers
71k
views
How do I convert a uniform value in [0,1) to a standard normal (Gaussian) distribution value?
I have uniform value in [0,1). I'd like to transform it into a standard normal distribution value, in a deterministic fashion.
What I'm confused about with the Box-Muller transform is that it takes ...
- 50.6k
1
vote
1
answer
176
views
Tight upper-bounds for the Gaussian width of intersection of intersection of hyper-ellipsoid and unit-ball
Let $\Lambda$ be a positive-definite matrix of size $n$ and let $R \ge 0$, which may depend on $n$. Consider the set $S := \{x \in \mathbb R^n \mid \|x\|_2 \le R,\,\|x\|_{\Lambda^{-1}} \le 1\}$ where $...
- 6,853
3
votes
1
answer
206
views
Asymptotic results for smallest gap of Gaussian random matrix
For a symmetric Gaussian random matrix $G=\{G\}_{1\le i,j \le n}$ with iid $E[G_{ij}]=0$ and $E[G_{ij}^2]=1/n$ (it is normalized), ordering its eigenvalues $\lambda_1\le \lambda_2\le\cdots \lambda_n$.
...
- 288
1
vote
0
answers
24
views
Minimax statistical estimation of proximal transform $\mbox{prox}_g(\theta_0)$, from linear model data $y_i := x_i^\top \theta_0 + \epsilon_i$
tl;dr: My question pertains the subject of minimax estimation theory (mathematical statistics), in the context of linear regression.
Given a vector $\theta_0 \in \mathbb R^d$, consider the linear ...
- 6,853
14
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How long for a simple random walk to exceed $\sqrt{T}$?
Let $R_n$ be a simple random walk with $R_0 = 0$, and let $T$ be the smallest index such that $k\sqrt{T} < |R_T|$ for some positive $k$.
What is an expression for the probability distribution of $...
- 2,821
3
votes
1
answer
549
views
Does $E[1/f]\overset{d}\to 1/E[f]$ for $\operatorname{Tr}H=1,\operatorname{Tr}H^2=0.5$?
Suppose $x$ is a Gaussian random variable in $d$ dimensions with $H=E[xx^T],\ \operatorname{Tr}(H)=1,\operatorname{Tr}(H^2)=0.5$. Take $m$ I.I.D. samples of $x$ and stack them as rows of $X$.
Is it ...
- 128k
2
votes
1
answer
304
views
An approximation problem w.r.t marginal distribution of coordinates of uniform random vector on high-dimensional unit-sphere
Let $X=(X_1,\ldots,X_d)$ be uniformly distributed on the sphere of radius $\sqrt{d}$ in $\mathbb R^d$. Fix a "sufficiently integrable" function $h:\mathbb R \to \mathbb R$, and define ...
CommunityBot
- 1