The Exact Equivalence of Distance and Kernel Methods for Hypothesis Testing

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Shen, Cencheng, Vogelstein, Joshua T.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2018
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author Shen, Cencheng
Vogelstein, Joshua T.
author_facet Shen, Cencheng
Vogelstein, Joshua T.
contents Distance-based tests, also called "energy statistics", are leading methods for two-sample and independence tests from the statistics community. Kernel-based tests, developed from "kernel mean embeddings", are leading methods for two-sample and independence tests from the machine learning community. A fixed-point transformation was previously proposed to connect the distance methods and kernel methods for the population statistics. In this paper, we propose a new bijective transformation between metrics and kernels. It simplifies the fixed-point transformation, inherits similar theoretical properties, allows distance methods to be exactly the same as kernel methods for sample statistics and p-value, and better preserves the data structure upon transformation. Our results further advance the understanding in distance and kernel-based tests, streamline the code base for implementing these tests, and enable a rich literature of distance-based and kernel-based methodologies to directly communicate with each other.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1806_05514
institution arXiv
publishDate 2018
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Exact Equivalence of Distance and Kernel Methods for Hypothesis Testing
Shen, Cencheng
Vogelstein, Joshua T.
Machine Learning
Distance-based tests, also called "energy statistics", are leading methods for two-sample and independence tests from the statistics community. Kernel-based tests, developed from "kernel mean embeddings", are leading methods for two-sample and independence tests from the machine learning community. A fixed-point transformation was previously proposed to connect the distance methods and kernel methods for the population statistics. In this paper, we propose a new bijective transformation between metrics and kernels. It simplifies the fixed-point transformation, inherits similar theoretical properties, allows distance methods to be exactly the same as kernel methods for sample statistics and p-value, and better preserves the data structure upon transformation. Our results further advance the understanding in distance and kernel-based tests, streamline the code base for implementing these tests, and enable a rich literature of distance-based and kernel-based methodologies to directly communicate with each other.
title The Exact Equivalence of Distance and Kernel Methods for Hypothesis Testing
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.05514