Testing Convex Truncation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: De, Anindya, Nadimpalli, Shivam, Servedio, Rocco A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909398892281856
author De, Anindya
Nadimpalli, Shivam
Servedio, Rocco A.
author_facet De, Anindya
Nadimpalli, Shivam
Servedio, Rocco A.
contents We study the basic statistical problem of testing whether normally distributed $n$-dimensional data has been truncated, i.e. altered by only retaining points that lie in some unknown truncation set $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$. As our main algorithmic results, (1) We give a computationally efficient $O(n)$-sample algorithm that can distinguish the standard normal distribution $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown and arbitrary convex set $S$. (2) We give a different computationally efficient $O(n)$-sample algorithm that can distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown and arbitrary mixture of symmetric convex sets. These results stand in sharp contrast with known results for learning or testing convex bodies with respect to the normal distribution or learning convex-truncated normal distributions, where state-of-the-art algorithms require essentially $n^{\sqrt{n}}$ samples. An easy argument shows that no finite number of samples suffices to distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from an unknown and arbitrary mixture of general (not necessarily symmetric) convex sets, so no common generalization of results (1) and (2) above is possible. We also prove that any algorithm (computationally efficient or otherwise) that can distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown symmetric convex set must use $Ω(n)$ samples. This shows that the sample complexity of each of our algorithms is optimal up to a constant factor.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2305_03146
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Testing Convex Truncation
De, Anindya
Nadimpalli, Shivam
Servedio, Rocco A.
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
Probability
Statistics Theory
We study the basic statistical problem of testing whether normally distributed $n$-dimensional data has been truncated, i.e. altered by only retaining points that lie in some unknown truncation set $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$. As our main algorithmic results, (1) We give a computationally efficient $O(n)$-sample algorithm that can distinguish the standard normal distribution $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown and arbitrary convex set $S$. (2) We give a different computationally efficient $O(n)$-sample algorithm that can distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown and arbitrary mixture of symmetric convex sets. These results stand in sharp contrast with known results for learning or testing convex bodies with respect to the normal distribution or learning convex-truncated normal distributions, where state-of-the-art algorithms require essentially $n^{\sqrt{n}}$ samples. An easy argument shows that no finite number of samples suffices to distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from an unknown and arbitrary mixture of general (not necessarily symmetric) convex sets, so no common generalization of results (1) and (2) above is possible. We also prove that any algorithm (computationally efficient or otherwise) that can distinguish $N(0,I_n)$ from $N(0,I_n)$ conditioned on an unknown symmetric convex set must use $Ω(n)$ samples. This shows that the sample complexity of each of our algorithms is optimal up to a constant factor.
title Testing Convex Truncation
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
Probability
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.03146