Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from math.OC
Wasserstein Mahalanobis Distances for Recovering Latent Geometry
Chuxiangbo Wang, Shiying Li and Caroline Moosmüller
The Mahalanobis distance is a fundamental covariance-adapted metric for multivariate data and plays a central role in recovering latent geometry from nonlinear observations. We extend this principle from vector-valued data to probability measures by introducing a Wasserstein Mahalanobis distance. Our construction replaces Euclidean displacement vectors with optimal transport displacement fields and local covariance
matrices with covariance operators defined on Wasserstein tangent spaces. We show that this construction inherits the geometry-recovery property underlying nonlinear independent component analysis. In particular, for Gaussian measures with common covariance transformed by a smooth nonlinear pushforward, the proposed Wasserstein Mahalanobis distance approximates the classical Mahalanobis distance between the transformed latent means. The correspondence is exact for affine transformations and holds up to controlled higher-order error terms for general smooth transformations. These results establish a distribution-valued analog of classical Mahalanobis geometry and provide theoretical support for covariance-adapted learning directly in Wasserstein space. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical predictions and demonstrate accurate recovery of latent
geometric structure.
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Statistics Theory
Record Values Based Inaccuracy Measures with an Application to Testing Symmetry
Santosh Kumar Chaudhary and Bhagwati Devi
This paper studies information-theoretic inaccuracy measures for record values and their application to testing
symmetry. We study the Kerridge inaccuracy measure, cumulative residual inaccuracy, cumulative past inaccuracy, and extropy-based inaccuracy measures to the distributions of nth upper and lower k-record values. Explicit expressions are derived for several common lifetime distributions (exponential, Pareto, Weibull, and uniform), and the monotonic behaviour of these measures with respect to the record order n, the parameter k, and the distributional parameters is analysed. Building on the known characterisation that equality of upper and lower record-based inaccuracy implies
symmetry, we develop a nonparametric goodness-of-fit test for
symmetry. The test statistic is the difference between the estimated Kerridge inaccuracy measures for upper and lower records, and its null distribution is obtained by a bootstrap procedure that enforces
symmetry. A simulation study demonstrates that the test maintains its nominal level for a variety of symmetric distributions and achieves high power against skewed alternatives, while a real-data illustration on annual maximum temperatures confirms its practical usefulness.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from stat.ME
Bayesian Distilled Clustering for High-Dimensional Mixture Models
Pulkita Aggarwal and Abhishek Bhattacharjee
Latent subgroup analysis is central to fields such as genomics, precision medicine, and social science, where the goal is to identify heterogeneous populations with distinct
covariate structures or response behaviors. Mixture models provide a natural probabilistic framework for this task, representing the data-generating distribution as a weighted combination of subgroup-specific laws with unobserved labels. In high-dimensional regimes, these analyses face significant challenges. Often, only a small subset of
covariates drives meaningful subgroup separation; the remaining variables may introduce noise or redundancy. Standard clustering methods typically treat all dimensions as equal, but in high-dimensional spaces, irrelevant coordinates can distort distances and obscure the low-dimensional structures defining latent classes. This paper introduces a
Bayesian distilled clustering framework for high-dimensional mixture models. We propose that clustering should occur within a statistically justified subspace rather than the full ambient space. Our method utilizes a
Bayesian variable selection model to estimate posterior inclusion probabilities, quantifying the evidence that each
covariate contributes to subgroup separation or response behavior. A "distilled"
covariate set is then identified by controlling the expected false-discovery proportion. Clustering is performed on this reduced subspace, followed by conditional independence diagnostics to examine subgroup-specific dependencies among selected variables. Critically, this framework is model-based: the
distillation step is tied directly to the mixture structure and response model rather than a generic dimension-reduction criterion. This ensures the resulting subspace remains aligned with the scientific objective: identifying latent subgroups that differ in both distributional structure and behavior.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from cs.LG
An Optimal Agnostic PAC Algorithm
Markus Engelund Mathiasen, Jian Qian and Nikita Zhivotovskiy
Let $H\subseteq\{-1,+1\}^X$ be a class of finite VC dimension $d\ge1$. Writing $L$ for the binary risk and $L^*=\min_{h\in H}L(h)$, we construct a learner achieving the statistically optimal risk bound: from an i.i.d.\ sample of size $n$, for every $0<\delta\le 1/2$, with probability at least $1-\delta$, \[ L(\widehat h) \le L^*+ 7\cdot10^8\left( \sqrt{\frac{L^*(d+\log(1/\delta))}{n}} +\frac{d+\log(1/\delta)}{n} \right). \] This settles the sample complexity of agnostic PAC learning up to universal constants at every fixed $L^*$, matching the lower bounds of Devroye, Györfi, and Lugosi [A Probabilistic Theory of Pattern Recognition, Springer, 1996].
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from stat.ML
Scalable estimation of VARMA models
Daniel Paulin and Victor Elvira
Vector autoregressive moving-average (VARMA) models have long been considered impractical beyond moderate dimensions: the likelihood is non-convex, the parametrization is identified only up to equivalence, and every evaluation costs a pass over the entire series. Yet their moving-average term captures with a few parameters what a pure autoregression matches only with many lags. We introduce an estimation framework that removes this computational barrier: each optimization iteration is independent of the series length $T$. The framework combines a partial-autocorrelation reparametrization that guarantees stationarity and invertibility by construction, Gaussian priors on the reparametrized coefficients with separate scales for diagonal and off-diagonal entries, and losses that depend on the data only through fixed-size sufficient statistics, evaluated by a Parseval (
Fourier) identity at near-linear cost in the truncation length. This yields two point
estimators: a regularized least-squares fit and a covariance-marginalized maximum-a-posteriori
estimator. We prove that both recover the infinite-autoregressive representation of the true process at a near-parametric rate in fixed dimension, so the truncation introduces no asymptotic bias. The same machinery extends, at the same leading cost, to seasonal dynamics, exogenous regressors (VARMAX), and rolling-window refits. Empirically, the
estimators stay close to the oracle forecast error from $d=10$ to $d=40$ (where classical conditional MLE returns non-invertible fits whose forecasts diverge) and match or beat VAR,
Bayesian-VAR, component-wise ARMA, and sparse-VARMA baselines on retail-demand, meteorological, and air-quality data. This brings likelihood-based VARMA estimation, at a per-iteration cost independent of the series length, to the problem sizes where practitioners have so far relied on VAR models.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from stat.ML
Optimal Rates for Learning with Monotone Adversaries
Anay Mehrotra
A monotone adversary observes an i.i.d. labeled sample and appends a finite number of further examples of its choice, every one of them labeled correctly by the target hypothesis. The learner sees a uniform shuffle of the combined sample and is scored on the original distribution. Every example is correctly labeled, but the insertions depend on the clean sample, so the combined sample is not exchangeable. Larsen, Pabbaraju, and Shetty, who introduced this model, showed that empirical risk minimization attains expected error $O((d/n)\log(n/d))$ for classes of VC dimension $d$, and that every known optimal learner can be pushed away from the $\Theta(d/n)$ rate, optimal for PAC learning. They asked whether the extra logarithm is an artifact of those particular
algorithms or an inherent consequence of the lack of exchangeability. We show that this additional cost is inherent beyond VC dimension one. In the worst case over classes of VC dimension $d$ and over known finite insertion budgets, the minimax expected error is $\Theta(1/n)$ at $d=1$ and $\Theta((d/n)\log(n/d))$ for $d\geq 2$. The same rates hold with Littlestone dimension $d_{\mathrm L}$ in place of $d$, so the clean online-to-batch rate $O(d_{\mathrm L}/n)$ is unattainable as well. Thus, somewhat counterintuitively, adding correctly labeled examples can make learning harder by a logarithmic factor, even for classes that admit finite mistake bounds in online learning. The dimension-one upper bound is achieved by a simple improper learner whose analysis adapts the leave-one-out argument underlying the one-inclusion graph. All of our lower bounds are elementary and come from a single construction: an explicit class and prior on which two target hypothesis, which differ a point of nonnegligible mass, produce the same sample.
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Statistics Theory
A Profile-Separation Framework for Quantitative Convergence of No-U-Turn Samplers
Krishnakumar Balasubramanian
We study multinomial and biased-progressive No-U-Turn Samplers for strongly log-concave targets satisfying $mI_d\preceq \nabla^2U(x)\preceq LI_d,$ and $\|\nabla^2U(x)-\nabla^2U(y)\|_{\mathrm F}\le \gamma L^{3/2}\|x-y\|$ with \(\kappa\coloneqq L/m\). We introduce profile separation, a sufficient sign condition on the stationary mean U-turn diagnostics, and combine it with diagnostic concentration, leapfrog fidelity, and whole-orbit energy control to show that on a high-probability certification event, every doubling realization reaches a common terminal depth through a genuine U-turn. If \(T_\star\) is the selected physical trajectory length and \(a_\star=\sqrt m\,T_\star\), a terminal-depth transfer argument yields restricted conductance and warm-start mixing without lazifying either kernel. Up to logarithmic warm-start and accuracy factors, the transition bounds are \[ \widetilde O\!\left( 1+a_\star^2\kappa^2(1+\gamma)^{4/3} \right) \quad\text{and}\quad \widetilde O\!\left( 1+a_\star^4\kappa^3(1+\gamma)^2 \right) \] for multinomial and biased-progressive selection, respectively. These transition bounds are unconditional. Gradient-work bounds are deterministic when the maximum-depth cap is comparable to the certified depth and otherwise take cap-aware expected and high-probability forms. The framework recovers the Gaussian dimension dependence under these work-accounting conditions, provides population-profile and exact-diagnostic verification for nonlinear product targets, a near-isotropic specialization of the practical-tree certificate, and quantifies when a fixed post-warmup metric removes linear anisotropy.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from cs.LG
Hypothesis Testing with Conditional Queries: Learnability and the Value of Interaction
Zonghuan Xu
Model evaluations may fix all tests before observing any responses or select later tests using earlier responses. We study this choice in a conditional-query model on a finite outcome space $\mathcal{X}$ with $|\mathcal{X}|=N$. We first ask which pairs of distribution classes can be reliably distinguished. We then ask how many additional queries are required to match an adaptive tester when all queried events must be fixed in advance. We show that learnability holds if and only if the two classes have positive separation in their pairwise conditional probabilities. When this separation is zero, the optimal worst-case error is exactly $1/2$ at every finite query budget. For any $T$-query adaptive policy and any $\rho \in (0,1)$, we construct a randomized non-adaptive procedure using $O(N^2(T + \log(1/\rho)))$ pair queries chosen before any response is observed. Its simulated transcript is within $\rho$ in total variation of the adaptive transcript, uniformly over all distributions in the model. We also construct a matching family with constant adaptive query complexity and $\Omega_\varepsilon(N^2)$ non-adaptive query complexity. Consequently, the worst-case fixed-error adaptivity gap is $\Theta_\varepsilon(N^2)$. Thus interaction can reduce the required number of tests by a quadratic factor, but the apparent exponential branching of an interactive evaluation does not yield an exponential query advantage.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from math.OC
Characteristic Sensitivity Ensembles for Inference of Hidden Dynamics from Marginal Observations
Qi Wang and Gustaaf Jacobs
A framework is developed for the inference of dynamics described by a generalized system of ordinary differential equations. A
stochastic gradient method is coined that infers dynamics from observed marginal probability density functions using the joint probability density function of the observable and latent variables.
Diffusion and other irreversible processes observed in a low-dimensional state can be recast as deterministic, reversible flows in a sufficiently augmented state space, where the joint density satisfies the
hyperbolic Liouville equation. The marginal distribution observed is the projection of these
hyperbolic dynamics onto the observed coordinates, with the latent components carrying the randomness and
memory. This reframing allows inference for irreversible or
stochastic dynamics into the recovery of a deterministic Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) from marginal observations. Instead of solving the high-dimensional Liouville equation for the joint density, the
algorithm exploits its characteristic representation. Particles sampled from the initial distribution are transported along characteristic lines. The Eulerian sensitivity with respect to parameters is obtained by sensitivity propagation along the characteristic lines, with a crossed U-statistic producing an unbiased gradient
estimator, which enables
stochastic gradient descent. Four experiments validate the method: recovery of a three-mode linear system observed through the marginal of a single mode; a nonlinear Gompertz growth model with a hidden mode; a bistable system whose hidden mode turns a unimodal marginal bimodal; and Stokes–Oseen drag law recovery for particles in a cellular flow. Convergence behavior is analyzed across these settings.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from math.DS
Verifiable Regularity Criterion for Conditional Expectation Operators and Conditional Mean Embeddings with Applications to Nonparametric Regression, Bayesian Inverse Problems, and Koopman Operators
Maximiliano Hertel, Ilja Klebanov, Manuel Schaller et al. (+1 more)
Conditional expectation operators (CEOs) and their associated conditional mean
embeddings (CMEs) play a central role across applied mathematics and machine learning, appearing in nonparametric regression,
Bayesian inverse problems, and Koopman operator theory. A fundamental question is when a CEO maps a function space on $\mathcal{Y}$ into a prescribed function space on $\mathcal{X}$, particularly a reproducing kernel
Hilbert space (RKHS). We show that such mapping properties are characterized by the regularity of the Radon–Nikodym density of the conditional law, and establish a simple, verifiable sufficient condition under which the CEO is bounded and
Hilbert–Schmidt. For RKHSs norm-equivalent to Sobolev spaces, this condition reduces to Sobolev regularity of the conditional density. The result yields a direct route to validate CME representations and error bounds for Galerkin-type and CME-based
estimators. We verify the regularity condition in three settings: nonparametric regression,
Bayesian inverse problems, and Koopman operator theory for
stochastic dynamical systems. We show in each case that classical regularity results on the underlying probabilistic model imply the required mapping properties. The resulting framework offers a unified perspective on conditional expectation operators across probability, operator theory, kernel methods, and
stochastic dynamics.
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All authors Maximiliano Hertel, Ilja Klebanov, Manuel Schaller, Karl Worthmann
Statistics Theory
Bartlett Couplings of the Onion and Vine LKJ Samplers
Peter Reinhard Hansen
The extended-onion and C-vine constructions of Lewandowski, Kurowicka and Joe (2009) are standard methods for sampling from the LKJ_n(eta) distribution on correlation
matrices. We show that both arise from the simpler row-normalized Bartlett construction associated with the restricted-Wishart representation of Wang, Wu and Chu (2018), which exposes redundancies hidden in standard gamma-based implementations of the classical constructions. Two exact row-wise couplings establish this: the squared norm of the Gaussian vector supplying the onion's direction has exactly the Gamma law required for one component of the Beta radius, and the same vector, with one chi-squared variate, generates the entire row of mutually independent C-vine partial correlations with their required symmetric-Beta laws. We also show that, relative to flat off-diagonal measure, the LKJ family maximizes
entropy at fixed expected log-determinant; the dual natural parameter is eta-1. Under gamma-ratio accounting, normalized Bartlett, the onion, and the conventional symmetric-Beta C-vine require n-1, 2(n-1), and n(n-1) Gamma-equivalent calls. Controlled
benchmarks confirm a low-dimensional advantage over the onion implementation and a persistent advantage over the C-vine implementations examined; direct Bartlett normalization also avoids subtractive complements, moving the small-eta zero-diagonal threshold from machine-epsilon scale toward the subnormal range. The sampler is valid for every real eta > 0 and requires only standard normal and chi-squared variates.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from cs.IT
Chernoff-Stein-Type Exponent in Testing Between Two Outlier Distributions
Ligong Wang
Among $2^{nR}$ length-$n$ random sequences, one sequence is an outlier whose index is random. Under hypothesis $\mathcal{H}_0$, the components of the outlier are independent and identically distributed (IID) according to $Q_0$, whereas under hypothesis $\mathcal{H}_1$ they are IID according to $Q_1$. The remaining $(2^{nR}-1)$ sequences are mutually independent, independent of the outlier, and IID according to $P$ under both hypotheses. Based on the observation of all $2^{nR}$ sequences, one wishes to decide between $\mathcal{H}_0$ and $\mathcal{H}_1$. Under the constraint that the decision error probability under $\mathcal{H}_0$ must be bounded away from $1$, we determine the fastest exponential decay rate of the decision error probability under $\mathcal{H}_1$.
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Statistics Theory
Polynomial regression under a mixture of classical and Berkson errors
Oleksandr Liubimov and Alexander Kukush
A
polynomial structural regression model is studied, where the
covariate is observed with a mixture of the classical and Berkson measurement errors. Both variances of the classical and Berkson errors, as well as some of their higher moments are assumed to be known. Without normality assumptions, consistent
estimators of model parameters are constructed using the Corrected Score method, and conditions for their asymptotic normality are given. Under mild conditions, we found pairs of asymptotically independent
estimators. A simulation study illustrates the results.
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Statistics Theory
Non-Gaussian fluctuations for traces of squared sample correlation matrices in high dimensions
Johannes Heiny, Xuechun Hu and Felix Seo
We provide limit theory for the trace of the squared sample correlation
matrix $\mathbf R$, constructed from $n$ observations of a $p$-dimensional random vector with iid components. If the entries have finite fourth moment and $p$ and $n$ grow proportionally, it is known that $\operatorname{tr}({\mathbf R}^2)$ satisfies a central limit
theorem (CLT) and the centering and scaling sequences are universal in the sense that they do not depend on the entry distribution. Under
symmetry and regular variation assumption with index $\alpha$ and any growth rate of the dimension, we prove that the universal CLT remains valid for $\alpha >3$. For $\alpha<3$, we identify a critical dimension growth at which the fluctuations of $\operatorname{tr}({\mathbf R}^2)$ become non-Gaussian. Moreover, if the dimension $p$ grows faster and $\alpha\le 3$ we establish a non-universal CLT with norming sequences depending on the value of $\alpha$. Our findings are illustrated in a simulation study.
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Statistics Theory
Asset-specific limit order microstructure noise: Parameter estimation and empirical evidence
Markus Bibinger, Adrian Grüber and Moritz Jirak
The one-sided microstructure noise model for high-frequency quotes from a limit order book is generalized to capture asset-specific noise tail behaviour. Estimation of a noise tail parameter becomes the key step for inference. This is possible based on moments of the high-frequency returns when specifying a parametric noise model. For a Gamma noise distribution, we establish a central limit
theorem for 1-dependent observations from the resulting Gamma difference distribution and prove that it is valid also in the convolution model with general semimartingale log-price dynamics. We highlight that the noise tail parameter has important implications for estimating the efficient price and its
volatility. An empirical analysis of recent NASDAQ limit order book data demonstrates that asset-specific noise tail parameters are relevant in practice.
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