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Main Authors: Iverson, Valentio, Vavasis, Stephen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.10172
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author Iverson, Valentio
Vavasis, Stephen
author_facet Iverson, Valentio
Vavasis, Stephen
contents Parameter estimation is a fundamental challenge in machine learning, crucial for tasks such as neural network weight fitting and Bayesian inference. This paper focuses on the complexity of estimating translation $\boldsymbolμ \in \mathbb{R}^l$ and shrinkage $σ\in \mathbb{R}_{++}$ parameters for a distribution of the form $\frac{1}{σ^l} f_0 \left( \frac{\boldsymbol{x} - \boldsymbolμ}σ \right)$, where $f_0$ is a known density in $\mathbb{R}^l$ given $n$ samples. We highlight that while the problem is NP-hard for Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), it is possible to obtain $\varepsilon$-approximations for arbitrary $\varepsilon > 0$ within $\text{poly} \left( \frac{1}{\varepsilon} \right)$ time using the Wasserstein distance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_10172
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mean and Variance Estimation Complexity in Arbitrary Distributions via Wasserstein Minimization
Iverson, Valentio
Vavasis, Stephen
Machine Learning
Parameter estimation is a fundamental challenge in machine learning, crucial for tasks such as neural network weight fitting and Bayesian inference. This paper focuses on the complexity of estimating translation $\boldsymbolμ \in \mathbb{R}^l$ and shrinkage $σ\in \mathbb{R}_{++}$ parameters for a distribution of the form $\frac{1}{σ^l} f_0 \left( \frac{\boldsymbol{x} - \boldsymbolμ}σ \right)$, where $f_0$ is a known density in $\mathbb{R}^l$ given $n$ samples. We highlight that while the problem is NP-hard for Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), it is possible to obtain $\varepsilon$-approximations for arbitrary $\varepsilon > 0$ within $\text{poly} \left( \frac{1}{\varepsilon} \right)$ time using the Wasserstein distance.
title Mean and Variance Estimation Complexity in Arbitrary Distributions via Wasserstein Minimization
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.10172