Using the method of transportation-information inequality introduced in \cite{GLWY}, we establish Bernstein type's concentration inequalities for empirical means $\frac 1t \int_0^t g(X_s)ds$ where $g$ is a unbounded observable of the symmetric Markov process $(X_t)$. Three approaches are proposed : functional inequalities approach ; Lyapunov function method ; and an approach through the Lipschitzian norm of the solution to the Poisson equation. Several applications and examples are studied.
In this work, Bernstein's concentration inequalities for squared integrable matrix-valued discrete-time martingales are obtained. Based on Lieb's theory and Bernstein's condition, a suitable supermartingale can be constructed. Our proof is largely based on this new exponential supermartingale, Freedman's method, and Doob's stopping theorem. Our result can be regarded as an extension of Tropp's work (ECP, 2012).
For self-normalized martingales with conditionally symmetric differences, de la Peña [A general class of exponential inequalities for martingales and ratios. Ann. Probab. 27, No.1, 537-564] established the Gaussian type exponential inequalities. Bercu and Touati [Exponential inequalities for self-normalized martingales with applications. Ann. Appl. Probab. 18: 1848-1869] extended de la Peña's inequalities to martingales with differences heavy on left. In this paper, we establish Bernstein type exponential inequalities for self-normalized martingales with differences bounded from below. Moreove…
We consider the stochastic integrals of multivariate point processes and study their concentration phenomena. In particular, we obtain a Bernstein type of concentration inequality through Doléans-Dade exponential formula and a uniform exponential inequality using a generic chaining argument. As applications, we obtain a upper bound for a sequence of discrete time martingales indexed by a class of functionals, and so derive the rate of convergence for nonparametric maximum likelihood estimators, which is an improvement of earlier work of van de Geer.
The Entropy method provides a powerful framework for proving scalar concentration inequalities by establishing functional inequalities like Poincare and log-Sobolev inequalities. These inequalities are especially useful for deriving concentration for dependent distributions coming from stationary distributions of Markov chains. In contrast to the scalar case, the study of matrix concentration inequalities is fairly recent and there does not seem to be a general framework for proving matrix concentration inequalities using the Entropy method. In this paper, we initiate the study of Matrix value…
We introduce two new concepts designed for the study of empirical processes. First, we introduce a new Orlicz norm which we call the Bernstein-Orlicz norm. This new norm interpolates sub-Gaussian and sub-exponential tail behavior. In particular, we show how this norm can be used to simplify the derivation of deviation inequalities for suprema of collections of random variables. Secondly, we introduce chaining and generic chaining along a tree. These simplify the well-known concepts of chaining and generic chaining. The supremum of the empirical process is then studied as a special case. We sho…
We show that the probability that a multilinear polynomial $f$ of independent random variables exceeds its mean by $λ$ is at most $e^{-λ^2 / (R^q Var(f))}$ for sufficiently small $λ$, where $R$ is an absolute constant. This matches (up to constants in the exponent) what one would expect from the central limit theorem. Our methods handle a variety of types of random variables including Gaussian, Boolean, exponential, and Poisson. Previous work by Kim-Vu and Schudy-Sviridenko gave bounds of the same form that involved less natural parameters in place of the variance.
The Bernstein inequality is a tight upper bound on tail probabilities for independent random variables. Freedman extended the Bernstein inequality to martingales with differences bounded from above, and then Dzhaparidze and van Zanten generalized Freedman's result to non-bounded locally square integrable martingales. In this paper, we derive some Dzhaparidze-van Zanten type inequalities for self-normalized martingales with square integrable and non-square integrable differences.
We prove concentration inequalities for functions of independent random variables {under} sub-gaussian and sub-exponential conditions. The utility of the inequalities is demonstrated by an extension of the now classical method of Rademacher complexities to Lipschitz function classes and unbounded sub-exponential distribution.
Using the renewal approach we prove Bernstein-like inequalities for additive functionals of geometrically ergodic Markov chains, thus obtaining counterparts of inequalities for sums of independent random variables. The coefficient in the sub-Gaussian part of our estimate is the asymptotic variance of the additive functional, i.e. the variance of the limiting Gaussian variable in the Central Limit Theorem for Markov chains. This refines earlier results by R. Adamczak and W. Bednorz, which were obtained under the additional assumption of strong aperiodicity of the chain.
We prove a new Bernstein-type inequality for the log-likelihood function of Bernoulli variables. In contrast to classical Bernstein's inequality and Hoeffding's inequality when applied to the log-likelihood, the new bound is independent of the parameters of the Bernoulli variables and therefore does not blow up as the parameters approach 0 or 1. The new inequality strengthens certain theoretical results on likelihood-based methods for community detection in networks and can be applied to other likelihood-based methods for binary data.
This note contains some estimates for tail spaces on Hamming cube. We use analytic paraproduct operator for that purpose. We also show several types of Bernstein--Markov inequalities for Banach space valued functions on Hamming cube. Here the novelty is in getting rid of some irritating logarithms and in proving Bernstein--Markov inequalities for $|\nabla f|_X$ rather than for $Δ^{1/2} f$ for $X$ valued polynomials on Hamming cube.
We consider the three dimensional array $\mathcal{A} = \{a_{i,j,k}\}_{1\le i,j,k \le n}$, with $a_{i,j,k} \in [0,1]$, and the two random statistics $T_{1}:= \sum_{i=1}^n \sum_{j=1}^n a_{i,j,σ(i)}$ and $T_{2}:= \sum_{i=1}^{n} a_{i,σ(i),π(i)}$, where $σ$ and $π$ are chosen independently from the set of permutations of $\{1,2,\ldots,n \}.$ These can be viewed as natural three dimensional generalizations of the statistic $T_{3}=\sum_{i=1}^{n} a_{i,σ(i)}$, considered by Hoeffding \cite{Hoe51}. Here we give Bernstein type concentration inequalities for $T_{1}$ and $T_{2}$ by extending the argument f…
We give a distribution-dependent concentration inequality for functions of independent variables. The result extends Bernstein's inequality from sums to more general functions, whose variation in any argument does not depend too much on the other arguments. Applications sharpen existing bounds for U-statistics and the generalization error of regularized least squares.
We derive concentration inequalities for empirical means $\frac{1}{t} \int_0^t f(X_s) ds$ where $X_s$ is an irreducible Markov jump process on a finite state space and $f$ some observable. Using a Feynman-Kac semigroup we first derive a general concentration inequality. Then, based on this inequality we derive further concentration inequalities. Hereby we use three different methods; perturbation theory, Poincaré inequalities and information inequalities. We also obtain a Bernstein type concentration inequality.
In this paper we give new deviation inequalities of Bernstein's type for the partial sums of weakly dependent time series. The loss from the independent case is studied carefully. We give non mixing examples such that dynamical systems and Bernoulli shifts for whom our deviation inequalities hold. The proofs are based on the blocks technique and different coupling arguments.
We establish concentration inequalities in the class of ultra log-concave distributions. In particular, we show that ultra log-concave distributions satisfy Poisson concentration bounds. As an application, we derive concentration bounds for the intrinsic volumes of a convex body, which generalizes and improves a result of Lotz, McCoy, Nourdin, Peccati, and Tropp (2019).
We consider a random variable $X$ that takes values in a (possibly infinite-dimensional) topological vector space $\mathcal{X}$. We show that, with respect to an appropriate "normal distance" on $\mathcal{X}$, concentration inequalities for linear and non-linear functions of $X$ are equivalent. This normal distance corresponds naturally to the concentration rate in classical concentration results such as Gaussian concentration and concentration on the Euclidean and Hamming cubes. Under suitable assumptions on the roundness of the sets of interest, the concentration inequalities so obtained are…
We obtain moderate deviations theorems and exponential (Bernstein type) concentration inequalities for "nonconventional" sums of the form $S_N=\sum_{n=1}^N (F(ξ_{q_1(n)},ξ_{q_2(n)},...,ξ_{q_\ell(n)})-\bar F)$.
This paper explores the connection between a generalized Riesz electric energy and norms on the set of probability measures defined in terms of duality. We derive functional inequalities linking these two notions, recovering and generalizing existing Coulomb transport inequalities. We then use them to prove concentration of measure around the equilibrium and thermal equilibrium measures. Finally, we leverage these concentration inequalities to obtain Moser-Trudinger-type inequalities, which may also be interpreted as bounds on the Laplace transform of fluctuations.
This paper studies concentration inequalities for functions of locally dependent random variables. We show that the usual definition of local dependence does not imply concentration for general Hamming Lipschitz functions. We define hypergraph dependence, which is a special case of local dependence, and show that it implies concentration if the maximal neighborhood size is small. We prove concentration in Hamming distance, Talagrand distance, and for self-bounding functions of a particular type under this dependence structure.
In the present paper we prove that the probabilities of the Pólya urn distribution (with negative replacement) satisfy a monotonicity property similar to that of the binomial distribution (Pólya urn distribution with no replacement). As a consequence, we show that the random variables with Pólya urn distribution (with negative replacement) are stochastically ordered with respect to the parameter giving the initial distribution of the urn. An equivalent formulation of this result shows that the new Bernstein operator recently introduced in [3] is a monotone operator. The proofs are probabilisti…
Let $\mathbf{W}=(W_1,W_2,...,W_k)$ be a random vector with nonnegative coordinates having nonzero and finite variances. We prove concentration inequalities for $\mathbf{W}$ using size biased couplings that generalize the previous univariate results. Two applications on local dependence and counting patterns are provided.
We propose new concentration inequalities for self-normalized martingales. The main idea is to introduce a suitable weighted sum of the predictable quadratic variation and the total quadratic variation of the martingale. It offers much more flexibility and allows us to improve previous concentration inequalities. Statistical applications on autoregressive process, internal diffusion-limited aggregation process, and online statistical learning are also provided.
In this work we derive multi-level concentration inequalities for polynomial functions in independent random variables with a $α$-sub-exponential tail decay. A particularly interesting case is given by quadratic forms $f(X_1, \ldots, X_n) = \langle X,A X \rangle$, for which we prove Hanson-Wright-type inequalities with explicit dependence on various norms of the matrix $A$. A consequence of these inequalities is a two-level concentration inequality for quadratic forms in $α$-sub-exponential random variables, such as quadratic Poisson chaos. We provide various applications of these inequalities…
We consider a Boolean model $Z$ driven by a Poisson particle process $η$ on a metric space $\mathbb{Y}$. We study the random variable $ρ(Z)$, where $ρ$ is a (deterministic) measure on $\mathbb{Y}$. Due to the interaction of overlapping particles, the distribution of $ρ(Z)$ cannot be described explicitly. In this note we derive concentration inequalities for $ρ(Z)$. To this end we first prove two concentration inequalities for functions of a Poisson process on a general phase space.
Non-Gaussian concentration estimates are obtained for invariant probability measures of reversible Markov processes. We show that the functional inequalities approach combined with a suitable Lyapunov condition allows us to circumvent the classical Lipschitz assumption of the observables. Our method is general and covers diffusions as well as pure-jump Markov processes on unbounded spaces.
Known Bernstein-type upper bounds on the tail probabilities for sums of independent zero-mean sub-exponential random variables are improved in several ways at once. The new upper bounds have a certain optimality property.
We show that any probability measure satisfying a Matrix Poincaré inequality with respect to some reversible Markov generator satisfies an exponential matrix concentration inequality depending on the associated matrix carré du champ operator. This extends to the matrix setting a classical phenomenon in the scalar case. Moreover, the proof gives rise to new matrix trace inequalities which could be of independent interest. We then apply this general fact by establishing matrix Poincaré inequalities to derive matrix concentration inequalities for Gaussian measures, product measures and for Strong…
We use a generalization of Hoeffding's inequality to show concentration results for the free energy of disordered pinning models, assuming only that the disorder has a finite exponential moment. We also prove some concentration inequalities for directed polymers in random environment, which we use to establish a large deviations results for the end position of the polymer under the polymer measure.
We prove that an irreducible aperiodic Markov chain is geometrically ergodic if and only if any separately bounded functional of the stationary chain satisfies an appropriate subgaussian deviation inequality from its mean.
One way to define the concentration of measure phenomenon is via Talagrand inequalities, also called transportation-information inequalities. That is, a comparison of the Wasserstein distance from the given measure to any other absolutely continuous measure with finite relative entropy. Such transportation-information inequalities were recently established for some stochastic differential equations. Here, we develop a similar theory for some stochastic partial differential equations.
This work shows how exponential concentration inequalities for additive functionals of stochastic processes over a finite time interval can be derived from concentration inequalities for martingales. The approach is entirely probabilistic and naturally includes time-inhomogeneous and non-stationary processes as well as initial laws concentrated on a single point. The class of processes studied includes martingales, Markov processes and general square integrable processes. The general approach is complemented by a simple and direct method for martingales, diffusions and discrete-time Markov pro…
Concentration properties of functionals of general Poisson processes are studied. Using a modified $Φ$-Sobolev inequality a recursion scheme for moments is established, which is of independent interest. This is applied to derive moment and concentration inequalities for functionals on abstract Poisson spaces. Applications of the general results in stochastic geometry, namely Poisson cylinder models and Poisson random polytopes, are presented as well.
We present a new, very short proof of a conjecture by I. Raşa, which is an inequality involving basic Bernstein polynomials and convex functions. It was affirmed positively very recently by J. Mrowiec, T. Rajba and S. Wąsowicz (2017) by the use of stochastic convex orders, as well as by Abel (2017) who simplified their proof. We give a useful sufficient condition for the verification of some stochastic convex order relations, which in the case of binomial distributions are equivalent to the I. Raşa inequality. We give also the corresponding inequalities for other distributions. Our methods all…
This paper deduces exponential matrix concentration from a Poincaré inequality via a short, conceptual argument. Among other examples, this theory applies to matrix-valued functions of a uniformly log-concave random vector. The proof relies on the subadditivity of Poincaré inequalities and a chain rule inequality for the trace of the matrix Dirichlet form. It also uses a symmetrization technique to avoid difficulties associated with a direct extension of the classic scalar argument.
We show sharpened forms of the concentration of measure phenomenon centered at first order stochastic expansions. The bound are based on second order difference operators and second order derivatives. Applications to functions on the discrete cube and stochastic Hoeffding type expansions in mathematical statistics are studied as well as linear eigenvalue statistics in random matrix theory.
We investigate the transportation cost-information inequalities for bifurcating Markov chains which are a class of processes indexed by binary tree. These processes provide models for cell growth when each individual in one generation gives birth to two offsprings in the next one. Transportation cost inequalities provide useful concentra-tion inequalities. We also study deviation inequalities for the empiri-cal means under relaxed assumptions on the Wasserstein contraction of the Markov kernels. Applications to bifurcating non linear autore-gressive processes are considered: deviation inequali…
In this paper, we establish concentration inequalities both for functionals of the whole solution on an interval [0, T ] of an additive SDE driven by a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter H $\in$ (0, 1) and for functionals of discrete-time observations of this process. Then, we apply this general result to specific functionals related to discrete and continuous-time occupation measures of the process.
We discuss interplays between log-concave functions and log-concave sequences. We prove a Bernstein-type theorem, which characterizes the Laplace transform of log-concave measures on the half-line in terms of log-concavity of the alternating Taylor coefficients. We establish concavity inequalities for sequences inspired by the Prékopa-Leindler and the Walkup theorems. One of our main tools is a stochastic variational formula for the Poisson average.
In this article we present a Bernstein inequality for sums of random variables which are defined on a spatial lattice structure. The inequality can be used to derive concentration inequalities. It can be useful to obtain consistency properties for nonparametric estimators of conditional expectation functions.
We obtain the following dimension independent Bernstein-Markov inequality in Gauss space: for each $1\leq p<\infty$ there exists a constant $C_p>0$ such that for any $k\geq 1$ and all polynomials $P$ on $\mathbb{R}^{k}$ we have $$ \| \nabla P\|_{L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{k}, \mathrm{d}γ_k)} \leq C_p (\mathrm{deg}\, P)^{\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}π\arctan\left(\frac{|p-2|}{2\sqrt{p-1}}\right)}\|P\|_{L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{k}, \mathrm{d}γ_k)}, $$ where $\mathrm{d}γ_k$ is the standard Gaussian measure on $\mathbb{R}^{k}$. We also show that under some mild growth assumptions on any function $B \in C^{2}((0,\infty))\c…
Recent development in high-dimensional statistical inference has necessitated concentration inequalities for a broader range of random variables. We focus on sub-Weibull random variables, which extend sub-Gaussian or sub-exponential random variables to allow heavy-tailed distributions. This paper presents concentration inequalities for independent sub-Weibull random variables with finite Generalized Bernstein-Orlicz norms, providing generalized Bernstein's inequalities and Rosenthal-type moment bounds. The tightness of the proposed bounds is shown through lower bounds of the concentration ineq…
In this work, we will generalize the moment generating function to Riesz spaces. We will derive some of its properties and use it to prove concentration inequalities on Riesz spaces.
Initially motivated by the study of the non-asymptotic properties of non-parametric tests based on permutation methods, concentration inequalities for uniformly permuted sums have been largely studied in the literature. Recently, Delyon et al. proved a new Bernstein-type concentration inequality based on martingale theory. This work presents a new proof of this inequality based on the fundamental inequalities for random permutations of Talagrand. The idea is to first obtain a rough inequality for the square root of the permuted sum, and then, iterate the previous analysis and plug this first i…
The aim of this paper is to prove an improved version of the bounded differences inequality for matrix valued functions, by developing the methods of Mackey et al.: "Matrix Concentration Inequalities via the Method of Exchangeable Pairs". Along the way, we prove new trace inequalities for the matrix exponential.
