Online monotone density estimation and log-optimal calibration

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Hauptverfasser: Hore, Rohan, Wang, Ruodu, Ramdas, Aaditya
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Hore, Rohan
Wang, Ruodu
Ramdas, Aaditya
author_facet Hore, Rohan
Wang, Ruodu
Ramdas, Aaditya
contents We study the problem of online monotone density estimation, where density estimators must be constructed in a predictable manner from sequentially observed data. We propose two online estimators: an online analogue of the classical Grenander estimator, and an expert aggregation estimator inspired by exponential weighting methods from the online learning literature. In the well-specified stochastic setting, where the underlying density is monotone, we show that the expected cumulative log-likelihood gap between the online estimators and the true density admits an $O(n^{1/3})$ bound. We further establish a $\sqrt{n\log{n}}$ pathwise regret bound for the expert aggregation estimator relative to the best offline monotone estimator chosen in hindsight, under minimal regularity assumptions on the observed sequence. As an application of independent interest, we show that the problem of constructing log-optimal p-to-e calibrators for sequential hypothesis testing can be formulated as an online monotone density estimation problem. We adapt the proposed estimators to build empirically adaptive p-to-e calibrators and establish their optimality. Numerical experiments illustrate the theoretical results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_08927
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Online monotone density estimation and log-optimal calibration
Hore, Rohan
Wang, Ruodu
Ramdas, Aaditya
Machine Learning
Methodology
We study the problem of online monotone density estimation, where density estimators must be constructed in a predictable manner from sequentially observed data. We propose two online estimators: an online analogue of the classical Grenander estimator, and an expert aggregation estimator inspired by exponential weighting methods from the online learning literature. In the well-specified stochastic setting, where the underlying density is monotone, we show that the expected cumulative log-likelihood gap between the online estimators and the true density admits an $O(n^{1/3})$ bound. We further establish a $\sqrt{n\log{n}}$ pathwise regret bound for the expert aggregation estimator relative to the best offline monotone estimator chosen in hindsight, under minimal regularity assumptions on the observed sequence. As an application of independent interest, we show that the problem of constructing log-optimal p-to-e calibrators for sequential hypothesis testing can be formulated as an online monotone density estimation problem. We adapt the proposed estimators to build empirically adaptive p-to-e calibrators and establish their optimality. Numerical experiments illustrate the theoretical results.
title Online monotone density estimation and log-optimal calibration
topic Machine Learning
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08927