9,287 research outputs found
A Lanczos Method for Approximating Composite Functions
We seek to approximate a composite function h(x) = g(f(x)) with a global
polynomial. The standard approach chooses points x in the domain of f and
computes h(x) at each point, which requires an evaluation of f and an
evaluation of g. We present a Lanczos-based procedure that implicitly
approximates g with a polynomial of f. By constructing a quadrature rule for
the density function of f, we can approximate h(x) using many fewer evaluations
of g. The savings is particularly dramatic when g is much more expensive than f
or the dimension of x is large. We demonstrate this procedure with two
numerical examples: (i) an exponential function composed with a rational
function and (ii) a Navier-Stokes model of fluid flow with a scalar input
parameter that depends on multiple physical quantities
Weighted Polynomial Approximations: Limits for Learning and Pseudorandomness
Polynomial approximations to boolean functions have led to many positive
results in computer science. In particular, polynomial approximations to the
sign function underly algorithms for agnostically learning halfspaces, as well
as pseudorandom generators for halfspaces. In this work, we investigate the
limits of these techniques by proving inapproximability results for the sign
function.
Firstly, the polynomial regression algorithm of Kalai et al. (SIAM J. Comput.
2008) shows that halfspaces can be learned with respect to log-concave
distributions on in the challenging agnostic learning model. The
power of this algorithm relies on the fact that under log-concave
distributions, halfspaces can be approximated arbitrarily well by low-degree
polynomials. We ask whether this technique can be extended beyond log-concave
distributions, and establish a negative result. We show that polynomials of any
degree cannot approximate the sign function to within arbitrarily low error for
a large class of non-log-concave distributions on the real line, including
those with densities proportional to .
Secondly, we investigate the derandomization of Chernoff-type concentration
inequalities. Chernoff-type tail bounds on sums of independent random variables
have pervasive applications in theoretical computer science. Schmidt et al.
(SIAM J. Discrete Math. 1995) showed that these inequalities can be established
for sums of random variables with only -wise independence,
for a tail probability of . We show that their results are tight up to
constant factors.
These results rely on techniques from weighted approximation theory, which
studies how well functions on the real line can be approximated by polynomials
under various distributions. We believe that these techniques will have further
applications in other areas of computer science.Comment: 22 page
An Introduction to Wishart Matrix Moments
These lecture notes provide a comprehensive, self-contained introduction to
the analysis of Wishart matrix moments. This study may act as an introduction
to some particular aspects of random matrix theory, or as a self-contained
exposition of Wishart matrix moments. Random matrix theory plays a central role
in statistical physics, computational mathematics and engineering sciences,
including data assimilation, signal processing, combinatorial optimization,
compressed sensing, econometrics and mathematical finance, among numerous
others. The mathematical foundations of the theory of random matrices lies at
the intersection of combinatorics, non-commutative algebra, geometry,
multivariate functional and spectral analysis, and of course statistics and
probability theory. As a result, most of the classical topics in random matrix
theory are technical, and mathematically difficult to penetrate for non-experts
and regular users and practitioners. The technical aim of these notes is to
review and extend some important results in random matrix theory in the
specific context of real random Wishart matrices. This special class of
Gaussian-type sample covariance matrix plays an important role in multivariate
analysis and in statistical theory. We derive non-asymptotic formulae for the
full matrix moments of real valued Wishart random matrices. As a corollary, we
derive and extend a number of spectral and trace-type results for the case of
non-isotropic Wishart random matrices. We also derive the full matrix moment
analogues of some classic spectral and trace-type moment results. For example,
we derive semi-circle and Marchencko-Pastur-type laws in the non-isotropic and
full matrix cases. Laplace matrix transforms and matrix moment estimates are
also studied, along with new spectral and trace concentration-type
inequalities
Interlacing Families II: Mixed Characteristic Polynomials and the Kadison-Singer Problem
We use the method of interlacing families of polynomials introduced to prove
two theorems known to imply a positive solution to the Kadison--Singer problem.
The first is Weaver's conjecture \cite{weaver}, which is known to
imply Kadison--Singer via a projection paving conjecture of Akemann and
Anderson. The second is a formulation due to Casazza, et al., of Anderson's
original paving conjecture(s), for which we are able to compute explicit paving
bounds.
The proof involves an analysis of the largest roots of a family of
polynomials that we call the "mixed characteristic polynomials" of a collection
of matrices.Comment: This is the version that has been submitte
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