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Friday 29 May

Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from eess.SY

Benchmarking Recursive-Collapse Warning Claims Under Matched False-Positive Control

Recursive systems can enter collapse-like regimes – self-reinforcing amplification, persistent recursion, and narrowing diversity that mask accelerating internal degradation – before overt failure becomes visible. We introduce Loopzero, a claim-bounded benchmark framework for testing whether recursive failures follow a directional telemetry pattern: rising gain (G), recursive persistence (p), and declining diversity ($\delta$). The claim boundary is specified in Lean; the Lean artifact does not verify real telemetry, benchmark validity, or detector performance. We evaluate the bridge on two frozen public-artifact benchmarks: a segmented public-markets benchmark (Volmageddon 2018, COVID MWCB 2020) and a MovieLens-25M offline deterministic recommender replay. Detectors are evaluated under a locked equal-false-positive contract (FP $\in$ [0.03, 0.07], pre-registered) so all configurations face the same alert budget. Neither tested standard comparators nor Loopzero's pre-registered quantile detector achieved an accepted operating point. Directional witness alignment held on both canonical benchmarks, with adjacent-horizon and row-level limitations disclosed. Digitized Shumailov et al. (2024) LLM training-loop trajectories are directionally consistent with the pattern; matched-FP evaluation in that domain is deferred. The contribution is a reproducible, falsifiable benchmark framework for evaluating recursive-collapse warning claims under an explicit alert-budget contract – non-acceptance reported as a first-class scientific outcome.
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Statistical Methodology

Cluster Analysis with Resampling for Validation and Exploration (CARVE)

Clustering is widely used across the sciences as the foundation for downstream data-driven scientific discoveries. However, clustering results are highly sensitive to the choice of algorithm, preprocessing, and the number of clusters $k$, producing scientific claims that are often not reproducible. The current state of the art for validating clustering solutions consists of clustering validation indices (CVIs) such as Silhouette, Davies-Bouldin, and Calinski-Harabasz, which rely on geometric assumptions that break down on the heavy-tailed, high-dimensional, and nonlinearly structured data encountered in biomedical research. Resampling-based alternatives - grounded in the ideas of clustering stability and generalizability - have been proposed but remain scattered across specialized tools with no unified, accessible software. We fill this gap with CARVE (Cluster Analysis with Resampling for Validation and Exploration), an open-source Python and R package that jointly evaluates multiple clustering algorithms and hyperparameters, returning stability and generalizability diagnostics at the global, cluster, and sample level together with principled selection rules and consensus-based cluster labels. Across six synthetic benchmarks CARVE consistently recovers near-optimal clusterings where classical indices degrade substantially. On experimental genomics and proteomics data sets, CARVE recovers finer biological structure when classical CVIs collapse entirely. CARVE is available with a scikit-learn-compatible Python API and an analogous R interface compatible with Seurat workflows.
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All authors Kai R. Wycik, Tiffany M. Tang, Tarek M. Zikry, Genevera I. Allen

Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Perturbative methods for non-parametric instrumental variable

We introduce a perturbative approach for nonparametric instrumental variable (NPIV) estimation. By drawing inspiration from perturbation theory in physics, we extend standard kernel ridge methods with systematic higher perturbation order corrections that significantly improve estimation accuracy. Spectrally, the perturbation introduces mixing between different eigenmodes of the expectation integral operator, which becomes especially useful when the integral equation is ill-defined. One source for such ill-definedness can be the curse of dimensionality. Our method performs across various dimensionality regimes, particularly when the dimensionality parameter $\beta$ which is defined through the number of samples $n$ and dimension $d$ as $n^\beta = d$, becomes large. Experimental results show that our first-order perturbative corrections can reduce prediction error by up to 99% in high-dimensional ill-defined cases ($\beta > 0.7$) compared to standard ridge regression approaches. The performance improvement is maintained across a wide range of dimensions, with the advantage becoming more pronounced as dimensionality increases.
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Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Large-scale Uncertainty Quantification for Latent Variable Models Using Subsampling Markov Chain Monte Carlo

Stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics combined with Gibbs updates (SGLD–Gibbs) provides a highly scalable approach to approximate Bayesian inference in latent variable models. However, it remains unclear how to tune the algorithm's hyperparameters in a principled manner to ensure the uncertainty estimates are statistically meaningful. In this work, we address this gap in tuning guidance by developing a statistical scaling limit theory for SGLD–Gibbs. We derive a joint asymptotic limit for the global parameters and latent variables under appropriate space-time rescaling. We show that global parameters converge to a diffusion-type limit, while each latent variable converges to a jump process, reflecting the use of intermittent Gibbs updates. This joint jump-diffusion structure reveals how latent-variable randomness contributes to the stationary distribution of the global parameters. We leverage our results to propose explicit guidance on hyperparameter tuning for SGLD–Gibbs that ensures meaningful uncertainty quantification. Numerical experiments show that SGLD–Gibbs with our tuning guidance leads to better parameter estimates, uncertainty quantification, and predictive performance than stochastic variational inference.
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Machine Learning (Statistics)

ERICA: Quantifying Replicability of Cluster Analysis

Despite being ubiquitous in science, clustering lacks a unified framework for quantitatively evaluating the replicability of its results. We present evaluating replicability via iterative clustering assignments (ERICA), a method for determining whether clusters can be identified reproducibly in a dataset. The pipeline computes a statistic that determines whether reproducible cluster structure is present in a dataset. Quantitative visualization methods are also introduced to characterize similarities between clusters and identify observations that may represent outliers or unstable assignments. Experiments on synthetic datasets demonstrate that ERICA successfully identifies reproducible cluster structure. In contrast, application of ERICA to three breast cancer gene-expression datasets reveals instances in which clustering solutions are not reproducible. The study underscores the importance of rigorously evaluating clustering solutions and provides a practical framework for doing so.
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Machine Learning (Statistics)

Is Zero-Shot Super-Resolution Possible in Operator Learning?

Neural operators are often reported to exhibit zero-shot super-resolution, a phenomenon in which a model trained on coarse grids produces accurate predictions on finer testing grids without additional retraining. Despite strong empirical evidence, the theoretical foundations of this phenomenon remain unclear. In this work, we provide a systematic theoretical study of zero-shot super-resolution in operator learning. We first show that zero-shot super-resolution can be information-theoretically impossible even in benign settings such as when the input functions are available over the entire continuum and the ground truth is a simple rank-one linear operator. We then identify Hölder smoothness of the output functions as a sufficient condition for zero-shot super-resolution and derive corresponding generalization bounds. Finally, we also validate the identified failure modes through experimental results.
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Statistical Methodology · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Accurate Large-sample Uncertainty Quantification using Stochastic Gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo

Tuning algorithms such as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (SGLD) for approximate sampling and uncertainty quantification remains challenging, particularly in the practically relevant settings when the batch size is large or the model is misspecified. Existing theory that provides tuning guidance relies on continuous-time limits or strong statistical assumptions, which can become quantitatively inaccurate in these regimes. We address these shortcomings by proposing new discrete-time approximations to SG(L)D with and without momentum, which enables accurate predictions of the stationary covariance, iterate average covariance, and integrated autocorrelation time. Moreover, we prove quantitative, non-asymptotic error bounds showing that these estimates are sufficiently accurate for practical tuning and uncertainty quantification. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our theory yields improved tuning guidance across a range of models and data-generating distributions where existing approaches fail, including when using the $\beta$-divergence rather than log-loss to obtain statistically robust inferences.
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Machine Learning (Statistics)

Out-of-Distribution generalization of quantile regression with heavy tailed inputs: an SVM approach

We study quantile regression in an extrapolation regime where the covariate takes unusually large values. Under regular variation assumptions, extreme observations can be effectively characterized through their angular components, enabling learning strategies that focus on the angle of the most extreme observations. This approach is formalized through the minimization of an asymptotic conditional risk that localizes learning in the tail of the covariate distribution. We propose a novel Support Vector Machine (SVM) framework for extreme quantile regression, leveraging reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces to handle high-dimensional and nonlinear settings. Our method also accommodates unbounded response variables and avoids restrictive transformations. We establish finite-sample learning guarantees under mild regularity assumptions. The proposed framework unifies ideas from statistical learning and multivariate extremes, providing a tractable and theoretically grounded approach to extrapolation. We complement our theoretical findings with an empirical study on river flow data from the Danube, demonstrating the practical relevance of our methods.
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Statistics Applications · Cross-listed from cs.LG

When Softmax Fails at the Top: Extreme Value Corrections for InfoNCE

InfoNCE is the standard contrastive learning objective, but its softmax form is not only a computational convenience: it also encodes a statistical assumption about how the top-scoring example is selected. Using extreme value theory, we show that this assumption is often misaligned with the normalized embedding setting used in modern contrastive learning. Motivated by this mismatch, we propose WEINCE, a simple modification of InfoNCE that uses anchor-wise online batch statistics to blend the usual softmax logits with an endpoint shortfall correction, adding no trainable parameters. Across five vision benchmarks, WEINCE yields consistent improvements in frozen-feature evaluation. These results show that a more faithful statistical treatment of hard negatives can improve contrastive objectives.
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All authors Melihcan Erol, Suat Evren, Oktay Ozel, Alexander Morgan, Jongha Jon Ryu, Lizhong Zheng

Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.NE

Dynamics and Representation Structure of Local Approximations to Gradient-Based Learning in Linear Recurrent Neural Networks

Biological and neuromorphic recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are subject to spatial and temporal locality constraints on the information that can plausibly be used during learning. A common strategy to satisfy these constraints is to modify gradient descent by neglecting non-local terms to varying degrees, as in random feedback local online (RFLO) learning and truncated backpropagation through time (tBPTT). However, the learning dynamics of these algorithms, and how they compare with BPTT, remain poorly understood. We apply dynamical systems theory to data-aligned linear RNNs – whose dynamics can be separated into orthogonal modes – to compare stationary solutions, stability properties, and convergence rates, finding qualitatively distinct behaviour for RFLO versus BPTT and one-step tBPTT. We further observe that the solutions learned by RFLO are restricted to low-rank perturbations of initial parameters, a result which holds beyond the data-aligned setting. Our work provides analytical insight into how locality constraints shape learning dynamics, with implications for neuroscientific models of learning and alternative optimization approaches for RNNs.
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Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

InfoAtlas: A Foundation Model for Zero-Shot Statistical Dependence Estimate

Measuring statistical dependency between high-dimensional random variables is a fundamental task in data science and machine learning. Neural mutual information (MI) estimators offer a promising avenue, but they typically require costly iterative optimization for each new dataset, making them impractical for real-time applications. We present InfoAtlas, a foundation model-like architecture that eliminates this bottleneck by directly inferring MI in a single forward pass. Pretrained on large-scale synthetic data with rich dependence patterns, InfoAtlas learns to identify diverse dependence structures and predict MI directly from the dataset. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that InfoAtlas matches state-of-the-art neural estimators in accuracy while achieving $100\times$ speedup, can flexibly handle varying dimensions and sample sizes through a single unified model, and generalizes effectively to complex, real-world scenarios. By reformulating MI estimation as an inference task, InfoAtlas establishes a foundation for real-time dependency analysis.
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All authors Zhengyang Hu, Yanzhi Chen, Hanxiang Ren, Qunsong Zeng, Youyi Zheng, Adrian Weller, Kaibin Huang, Yanchao Yang

Statistics Theory

Density Evolution: A Multiscale View of Density Estimation

Density estimation is often presented as a choice among parametric summaries, finite mixtures, and nonparametric smoothers. This review argues for a complementary view: a data set can be studied through a path of densities indexed by smoothing scale, diffusion time, model complexity, density level, or noise level. We call this perspective density evolution. Under this lens, Gaussian kernel density estimation is heat flow from the empirical measure; scale-space methods, critical bandwidths, mode trees, and derivative-significance displays describe the evolution of modal and derivative structure; finite mixtures and mixture reduction provide compressed representations of kernel-like estimates; and cluster trees and persistent homology summarize evolving level-set topology. We review these connections and discuss inference for feature lifetimes, high-dimensional complications, and links with score-based generative diffusion. We also include three elementary structural results: nondegenerate modes move along smooth branches, a natural moment-preserving Gaussianization semigroup is forced to be Ornstein–Uhlenbeck, and shared-covariance Gaussian mixtures become log-concave once component means are sufficiently concentrated. Together, these ideas shift attention from choosing one density estimate to studying the multiscale probability landscape.
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Statistical Methodology

On Asymptotic Outlier Rejection in Bayesian Mixed Poisson Regression Models Under Extreme Target and Covariate Values

Bayesian models are defined to be fully robust against outliers if observations infinitely far from the other data do not influence the posterior. In regression models, this entails a need to consider outliers in both target and covariate values. While in linear regression these cases are interchangeable, as both lead to anomalously large residuals, this symmetry does not apply to generalized linear models. Importantly, Hamura et al. (2025, arXiv:2106.10503) presented sufficient conditions for mixed Poisson count regression models to be robust against infinitely large target values and proposed a mixed Poisson-Rescaled Beta model fulfilling these conditions. We continue from their work and study the robustness properties of mixed Poisson regression models with Gaussian latent variables in the presence of outliers in covariates. We show that in count regression the symmetry between covariate and target outliers breaks: mixed Poisson models are not robust to outlier covariates even if they were robust to target outliers. Furthermore, we show that, as a covariate gets infinitely large, the corresponding regression coefficient posterior collapses to a point-mass distribution concentrated around zero. We hence introduce a novel robustified mixed Poisson model which we denote as $x$-outlier rejective ($x$-OR) mixed Poisson, and demonstrate its theoretical and practical ability to accommodate outliers in the covariates. We investigate robustness properties of alternative ($x$-OR) mixed Poisson models in the presence of moderate outliers with simulations and a real world case study and show that the $x$-OR log-$t$ and Rescaled Beta mixed Poisson models reject both types of outliers, leading to improved inference.
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Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Agentic Transformers Provably Learn to Search via Reinforcement Learning

Tree search is a central abstraction behind many language-agent reasoning and decision-making tasks: agents must explore actions, remember failures, and backtrack toward promising alternatives. Yet, we lack a theoretical understanding of how transformer-based policies acquire such search capabilities from the training dynamics of reinforcement learning (RL). We study this question in a stochastic $k$-ary tree environment, where an agentic transformer observes only its trajectory history through interaction and receives a terminal reward for reaching a hidden leaf goal node. We first construct a two-head transformer that implements randomized depth-first search (DFS): one head tracks previous actions, while the other detects failure outcomes and triggers backtracking. We then analyze the training dynamics of policy gradient under a depth-wise curriculum, showing that this same DFS mechanism emerges in stages from sparse reinforcement feedback without expert demonstrations. The resulting policy exhibits depth generalization: after training only on depth-$1$ and depth-$2$ trees, it succeeds on deeper full trees. We further show that, under imbalanced goal distributions, discounting the return leads to a ranked DFS policy that prioritizes higher-probability branches. Overall, our results identify a mechanistic normal form for transformer-based search, in which attention heads specialize and cooperate to extract decision-relevant traces from context and convert them into agentic action selection via RL training.
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All authors Tong Yang, Yu Huang, Yingbin Liang, Yuejie Chi

Statistical Methodology

Infinite-Dimensional Spherical Kernel ridge Regression

We introduce a novel regression framework designed to model non-linear responses situated on a sphere $\mathbb{S}$ of finite or infinite dimension. Unlike traditional tangent-space regressions, which lift responses to a tangent space $T_o \mathbb{S}$ and thereby violate intrinsic spherical distances, our proposed method employs an intrinsic approach. We model the conditional mean through an intercept $o \in \mathbb{S}$ and a linear predictor function $f: \mathfrak{X} \to T_o \mathbb{S}$. This formulation transforms the estimation problem into finding a linear predictor within a function space, but utilizing a metric defined by spherical geometry rather than standard Euclidean distance. Leveraging vector-valued reproducing kernel Hilbert space theory, our approach reduces the infinite-dimensional estimation challenge to a manageable finite-dimensional problem via the representer theorem, leading to an efficient BFGS-based estimation algorithm. We establish convergence rates and analyze the finite-sample behavior of our estimator, concluding with a practical application to density regression. The full implementation is available in R.
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Machine Learning (Statistics)

Interpreting FCDNNs via RG on Exponential Family

We consider establishing the interpretability theory of deep learning through constructing a corresponding relationship between the renormalization group (RG) method in statistical physics and the training process of deep neural networks (DNNs). We have proved the constructed relationship using the one-dimensional Ising model as the input data. In this paper we generalize our results to the case of continuous input data, which is a necessary preparation for applying the corresponding framework to real-world data. To be representative, we consider a class of data distribution in the exponential family. We prove that when the parameters of fully connected (FC) DNNs achieve their optimal value after training, the characteristic parameters of the feature layer output of DNNs are equal to the fixed points of the characteristic parameters of input data under RG method for continuous fields. This conclusion shows that the training process of DNNs is equivalent to RG calculation on this kind of data and therefore the network can extract main features from the input data just like RG. Also, the equivalence further validates the correspondence framework we have established, providing an explanation for the outstanding performance of DNNs on real-world data.
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Statistics Theory

Normal approximations in nonparametric empirical Bayes

Empirical Bayes analyses routinely model noisy measurements of latent parameters as normal, justifying this by an informal appeal to the central limit theorem (CLT). This paper puts this heuristic appeal on firmer analytical grounds. We show that the denoising regret of the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) and related sieve methods is controlled by the rate attained under exact normality, plus a term reflecting the quality of the CLT approximation. The CLT need only hold marginally for each coordinate, and moreover only on average, without needing high-dimensional normal approximations. We identify two asymptotic regimes in which the normal approximation is adequate and the empirical Bayesian prior remains informative, and we show that our guarantees are robust to dependence and to variance estimation.
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Statistics Theory

Sharp minimax risks and phase transitions in sparse submatrix detection

We study the minimax risk for detecting a sparse elevated-mean Gaussian submatrix inside a larger noisy matrix. When the planted submatrix has size $n\times n$ and the ambient matrix has size $N\times N$ with $N = n^{1+\alpha}$, the classical work of \cite{butuceasubmatrix2013} identifies the sharp detection boundary around which the minimax risk converges to $0$ or $1$. This paper extends that zero-one theory by determining the precise asymptotic rate of the minimax risk throughout a two-variable phase diagram. Above the detection boundary, we determine the precise exponent for the stretched or super-exponential decay of the risk. Below the boundary, where the risk tends to 1, we identify the exact polynomial order of the rate of convergence up to absolute multiplicative constants. In both of these regimes, the form of the sharp asymptotics changes around the line $\alpha + \delta = 1/2$ where $\delta$ indicates the signed distance from the boundary. Finally, on the detection boundary, we show that the minimax risk converges to the non-degenerate constant $\frac12$ in the very sparse case where $n$ remains fixed and $N \to \infty$. Each of these rates corresponds to the risk of a suitably calibrated scan or sum test, whence follow the upper bounds. To show the sharpness of these bounds, we rely on refined second-moment methods applied to random variables chosen carefully according to the particular regime. Our results also extend to the tensor setting.
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Statistics Theory · Cross-listed from eess.SP

Functional Multi-Target Detection via Bispectrum Inversion

This paper develops a functional theory for multi-target detection, where a compactly supported signal is recovered from a single noisy observation containing many unknown translations of the signal. Our formulation allows continuous, off-grid translations and correlated stationary Gaussian process noise, extending beyond the discrete, grid-aligned, white-noise models common in prior work. We analyze two uninitialized recovery algorithms based on autocorrelation analysis; in particular, both algorithms first estimate the signal's bispectrum via a debiased third-order empirical autocorrelation. The signal is then recovered from the estimated bispectrum using either a functional frequency marching scheme or a Kotlarski-type deconvolution formula. For both algorithms, we prove non-asymptotic recovery guarantees for compactly supported signals without bandlimiting assumptions. The resulting error bounds depend on the smoothness of the signal and the accuracy of bispectrum estimation, with the latter governed by the noise characteristics and the number of signal occurrences. Numerical experiments validate our theory and demonstrate accurate recovery in low-SNR regimes.
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All authors Anna Little, Daniel Sanz-Alonso, Mikhail Sweeney, Ruiyi Yang

Statistical Methodology

Addressing errors in multiple variables using generalized raking and cumulative probability models

Routinely collected data, such as electronic health record (EHR) data, are frequently used for biomedical research, but these data are prone to errors, which can bias study findings. Validating data in subsamples of records can reduce bias, and the efficiency of estimates can be improved by incorporating in analyses both the error-prone data available on the entire cohort and the validated data available on the subsample. One approach to incorporate both data sources is with generalized raking, which calibrates validation sampling weights using error-prone data from the entire cohort. Motivated by an EHR study of maternal weight gain during pregnancy with a validation subsample, we develop and illustrate generalized raking techniques for cumulative probability models (CPMs). CPMs are robust, rank-based and semiparametric models for continuous, ordinal, or mixed type outcome data. We develop efficient generalized raking estimators for CPMs, evaluate their performance relative to competing methods, and demonstrate the utility and strengths of generalized raking with CPMs in a study that examines factors associated with weight gain during pregnancy.
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All authors Eric S. Kawaguchi, Chun Li, Frank E. Harrell Jr., Pamela A. Shaw, Thomas Lumley, Bryan E. Shepherd

Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

The Dynamic-Probabilistic Consistency Gap in Chaotic Surrogate Modeling

Dynamical systems reconstruction (DSR) aims to learn surrogate models that capture the dynamics underlying time-series data. Reliably deploying these surrogates requires uncertainty estimates consistent with the learned dynamics. We expose a dynamic-probabilistic consistency (DPC) gap: the pursuit of finite-horizon probabilistic objectives can degrade dynamics or decouple predictive uncertainty from the local tangent dynamics it ought to reflect. We isolate three mechanisms behind this gap: core collapse, noise masking, and blind uncertainty. Specifically, we show that open-loop Gaussian rollout objectives can penalize Jacobian-generated covariance growth in chaotic systems, encouraging optimization shortcuts that weaken physical expansion or decouple uncertainty from it. To mitigate this gap, we propose KAFFEE (Kalman-Aware Framework For Ergodic Emulation), a differentiable extended Kalman filter-based training framework that evaluates likelihood on local predictive residuals (innovations) while transporting covariance through learned local Jacobians. On stochastic hyperchaotic Lorenz-96, KAFFEE reduces the identified failure modes, improves reconstruction of dynamical invariants relative to open-loop objectives, and maintains competitive predictive scores. We further show that the DPC gap appears when probabilistically adapting a DSR foundation model across 13 chaotic systems, where KAFFEE enables in-context Bayesian filtering while largely preserving zero-shot dynamics.
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All authors Andre Herz, Matthijs Pals, Daniel Durstewitz, Georgia Koppe

Statistics Theory

Closed-form linear moments of the two-dimensional angular central Gaussian distribution

The polar-angle marginal of a centred bivariate Gaussian distribution, obtained after integrating out the radial coordinate, gives the two-dimensional angular central Gaussian (ACG) distribution of Tyler. While its trigonometric and vector-valued moments have been studied in detail, to our knowledge there are no explicit closed-form expressions for the linear moments $\mathbf{E}[\theta]$ and $\mathbf{E}[\theta^{2}]$ on the natural domain $\theta\in\left]-\pi/2,\pi/2\right[$. Here linear refers to the ordinary moments $\int\theta^{k}f(\theta)\,d\theta$ of the angle regarded as a real-valued variable, in contrast to the circular (trigonometric) moments $\mathbf{E}[e^{ik\theta}]$ customary in directional statistics. We provide such expressions: the mean is a simple arctangent of the parameters, while the second moment is given by the real part of a dilogarithm. The derivation, based on a contour integration around the branch cut of $\arctan z$, is elementary. These quantities naturally arise in physics, where $\theta$ is interpreted as a real-valued phase rather than a circular variable.
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Statistics Applications

Bayesian Nonparametric Clustering to Support Medical Decision-Making: A Variational Inference Approach

Medical decision-making increasingly requires rapid and reliable assignment of patients to disease subtypes, as many diseases are no longer treated as single entities. For example, cancer patients may be stratified into aggressive and non-aggressive subtypes, with different treatment strategies for each group. We propose a Bayesian nonparametric approach based on a Dirichlet process mixture model for clustering individuals into disease subtypes. We implement a coordinate ascent variational inference algorithm, yielding an effective and computationally efficient alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), to support medical decision-making. In synthetic experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed approach accurately assigns observations to their ground-truth clusters, achieving strong performance across evaluation metrics, such as homogeneity and completeness. Additionally, we illustrate the proposed approach achieves a substantial improvement in computational cost compared to MCMC, without sacrificing accuracy that would lead to the increased risk of misdiagnosis.
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Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

When Are Multimodal Predictions Biologically Supported? A Diagnostic Evaluation Framework

Multimodal models in oncology can produce accurate predictions, but accurate prediction does not reveal whether the model has learned biology that is shared across modalities, biology confined to one modality, or spurious correlations that reflect confounders rather than genuine biology. We introduce DECAT, a model-agnostic post-hoc evaluation framework that classifies multimodal representations into four diagnostic scenarios for a given task and modality, using five null-referenced metrics and a rule-based decision procedure. The framework operates on learned representations, requires no knowledge of which specific confounder is present, and returns indeterminate when the evidence is insufficient. We validate DECAT on synthetic data across four multimodal model classes (over 2,500 trained representations) and on real data from 8,979 TCGA patients, evaluating both multimodal embeddings and five pretrained pathology foundation models. Entangled models (e.g., CLIP) achieve near-perfect shared biology detection but falsely claim shared biology in the majority of cases where it is absent on real foundation model embeddings. This false claim rate increases with confound strength so that larger cohorts and stronger representations produce more confident but still incorrect diagnoses. Applied to both multimodal TCGA embeddings and five pathology foundation models without paired RNA, DECAT detects confounding invisible to AUROC without requiring the confounder labels, as confirmed by post-hoc stratification.
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All authors Dylan Steiner, Gustavo Arango-Argoty, Gerald Sun, Etai Jacob

Machine Learning (Statistics) · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Assign and Add: A Mechanistic Study of Compositional Arithmetic

Large language models are able to compose skills in order to perform complex tasks, many of which might not have been seen during training. The details of how exactly this composition occurs remain elusive. In this paper, we study a mechanism for compositional generalization in transformers by considering a simple controlled setting involving variable assignment and modular addition. By partitioning our training data into disjoint sets, we observe that small transformers are able to generalize to previously unseen combinations of variables and numbers. Our mechanistic analysis shows that the same “modular addition” MLP module is used whether the inputs are given directly or indirectly through a separate variable assignment mechanism. We also analyze the training dynamics from an empirical lens, which reveals three phases of learning: first, modular addition is learned, then the structure required for variable assignment, and finally a refinement phase where the model generalizes to some hard sequences not seen in training. Finally, we provide a theoretical framework to explain how compositionality emerges from training dynamics. These results suggest that compositional generalization can be a natural consequence of the compositionality of internal mechanisms in~transformers.
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Statistics Theory

The Nonparametric Kiefer-Weiss Problem

A nonparametric variant of the Kiefer-Weiss problem is proposed and solved. The objective is to minimize a weighted sum of the error probabilities of a binary sequential test subject to a constraint on its maximum expected sample size. This maximum is taken over all possible probability distributions on the given sequence space. First, it is shown that the nonparametric Kiefer-Weiss problem can be reduced to an optimal stopping problem. Then, the optimal stopping policy is derived under the assumption that at most k uses of randomization are permitted during any run of the test. The solution to the original problem is then obtained by letting k go to infinity. The optimal cost function is shown to be the solution of a nonlinear Bellman equation. The corresponding optimal stopping policy is shown to be based on a two-dimensional test statistic, with one component tracking the likelihood ratio and the other one tracking the expected remaining sample size. Critically, the stopping policy uses randomization to increase the remaining expected sample size for some runs, while stopping early for others. The optimal randomization rule is shown to be determined by a function that maps the likelihood ratio to an integer-valued sample size. Two approximations of this function are proposed that can be evaluated easily in practice. The results are illustrated with two numerical examples of nonparametric Kiefer-Weiss tests, one for a shift in the success probability of a Bernoulli distribution, and one for a shift in the mean of a normal distribution.
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Statistical Methodology

Modeling Covariate Transition for Efficient Estimation of Longitudinal Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments

We present a regression-adjustment framework designed for the estimation of longitudinal treatment effects in randomized experiments under static regimes. While regression-adjustment methods are useful for variance reduction in randomized experiments by using pre-treatment covariates, they usually focus only on average effects, from which we cannot obtain valuable insights into when the effects appear and how long they continue. To address this issue, we consider intermediate outcomes and evolving post-treatment covariates over time, and we represent such dynamic trajectories using transition kernels. Furthermore, we establish the asymptotic normality and the semiparametric efficiency bound for our estimator, enabling more powerful statistical inference. Simulation studies and empirical analysis using A/B test data from a streaming platform in Japan show the practical advantages of our method.
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All authors Naoki Chihara, Tatsushi Oka, Yasuko Matsubara, Yasushi Sakurai, Shota Yasui

Statistical Methodology

Synthetic Data Generation With Incomplete Survey Data Under Informative Sampling

We propose a Bayesian framework for data synthesis and imputation in complex survey settings with informative sampling. To address variance underestimation in existing Bayesian approaches and to accommodate the missing data encountered in survey data, we introduce an adaptive weighting scheme for parameter estimation. We show that the proposed weighting yields consistent estimators with an asymptotically valid Godambe information matrix. The framework is flexible, accommodating a broad class of Bayesian models and facilitating practical implementation. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed method provides accurate uncertainty quantification for both model parameters and synthetic population inference.
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All authors Ayat Almomani, Won Chang, Youngdeok Hwang, Young Min Kim, Hang J. Kim

Statistics Theory

Second-order PACF asymptotics and discrimination between fractional Gaussian noise and $\FARIMA(0,d,0)$

Fractional Gaussian noise and $\FARIMA(0,d,0)$ have the same long-memory pole $|\theta|^{-2d}$ and hence the same leading PACF law $\alpha(n)\sim d/n$. We show that this agreement breaks at the first non-universal order. For $0<d<1/2$, the pure fGn PACF satisfies $$ \alpha_{\fGn}(n)=\frac d n+\frac{C_{\fGn}(d)}{n^2}+o(n^{-2}), \qquad C_{\fGn}(d)<d^2, $$ The proof uses the Bingham–Inoue–Kasahara representation, a phase-coefficient expansion for fGn, and a Hankel-operator perturbation argument. Thus the fGn spectral envelope is invisible at first order but visible in second-order finite prediction, explaining why short-memory order selection can differ when fGn data are fitted by FARIMA-type models.
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Statistics Theory

Improved Guarantees for Langevin Monte Carlo with Average Smoothness

We establish improved nonasymptotic bounds for Langevin Monte Carlo in the strongly log-concave setting, when the error is measured by the Wasserstein distance. The main result shows that the discretization error is governed by an average coordinate-wise smoothness constant, rather than by the usual global smoothness constant. The proof is short and probabilistic, and relies on a refined use of the synchronous coupling. We further show that the same ideas lead to improved bounds for variable step sizes, for potentials whose Laplacian is Lipschitz-continuous, and for finite-sum problems sampled by stochastic-gradient Langevin dynamics with fixed point control variates. In the Laplacian-smooth case, the usual Hessian-Lipschitz contribution is replaced by a weaker trace-type third-order smoothness quantity. In the finite-sum setting, the resulting SGLD bound improves the dependence on the root mean square smoothness of the component functions. Applications to generalized linear models with Gaussian design show that these refinements can yield substantial, dimension-dependent improvements over previously known bounds, especially for correlated covariates.
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