Near-Optimal Closeness Testing of Discrete Histogram Distributions

DOI10.4230/LIPICS.ICALP.2017.8zbMATH Open1441.68283arXiv1703.01913MaRDI QIDQ5111337FDOQ5111337

Vladimir Nikishkin, Daniel M. Kane, Ilias Diakonikolas

Publication date: 27 May 2020

Abstract: We investigate the problem of testing the equivalence between two discrete histograms. A {em $k$-histogram} over $[n]$ is a probability distribution that is piecewise constant over some set of $k$ intervals over $[n]$. Histograms have been extensively studied in computer science and statistics. Given a set of samples from two $k$-histogram distributions $p,q$ over $[n]$, we want to distinguish (with high probability) between the cases that $p=q$ and $|p-q{|}_{1}geqepsilon$. The main contribution of this paper is a new algorithm for this testing problem and a nearly matching information-theoretic lower bound. Specifically, the sample complexity of our algorithm matches our lower bound up to a logarithmic factor, improving on previous work by polynomial factors in the relevant parameters. Our algorithmic approach applies in a more general setting and yields improved sample upper bounds for testing closeness of other structured distributions as well.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.01913

zbMATH Keywords

histogramsdistribution testingcloseness testing

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Randomized algorithms (68W20)

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• Hypothesis testing for high-dimensional multinomials: a selective review
• Local minimax rates for closeness testing of discrete distributions
• Which Distribution Distances are Sublinearly Testable?
• Minimum distance histograms with universal performance guarantees

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