An explicit upper bound on the tail probabilities for the normalized Rademacher sums is given. This bound, which is best possible in a certain sense, is asymptotically equivalent to the corresponding tail probability of the standard normal distribution, thus affirming a longstanding conjecture by Efron. Applications to sums of general centered uniformly bounded independent random variables and to the Student test are presented.
A well-known longstanding conjecture on the supremum of the tails of normalized sums of independent Rademacher random variables is disproved. A related conjecture, also recently disproved, is discussed.
Let S_n:=a_1\vp_1+...+a_n\vp_n, where \vp_1,...,\vp_n are independent Rademacher random variables (r.v.'s) and a_1,...,a_n are any real numbers such that a_1^2+...+a_n^2=1. Let Z be a standard normal r.v. It is proved that the best constant factor c in inequality ¶(S_n>x) \leq c¶(Z>x) for all x in \R is between two explicitly defined absolute constants c_1 and c_2 such that c_1<c_2 \approx 1.01c_1.
We provide a generalisation of Pinelis' Rademacher-Gaussian tail comparison to complex coefficients. We also establish uniform bounds on the probability that the magnitude of weighted sums of independent random vectors uniform on Euclidean spheres with matrix coefficients exceeds its second moment.
We prove a dimension-free tail comparison between the Euclidean norms of sums of independent random vectors uniformly distributed in centred Euclidean spheres and properly rescaled standard Gaussian random vectors.
It is shown that \begin{equation*} \mathsf{P}(\|a_1U_1+\dots+a_nU_n\|>u)\le c\,\mathsf{P}(a\|Z_d\|>u) \end{equation*} for all real $u$, where $U_1,\dots,U_n$ are independent random vectors uniformly distributed on the unit sphere in $\mathbb{R}^d$, $a_1,\dots,a_n$ are any real numbers, $a:=\sqrt{(a_1^2+\dots+a_n^2)/d}$, $Z_d$ is a standard normal random vector in $\mathbb{R}^d$, and $c=2e^3/9=4.46\dots$. This constant factor is about $89$ times as small as the one in a recent result by Nayar and Tkocz, who proved, by a different method, a corresponding conjecture by Oleszkiewicz. As an immedia…
We consider a Markov chain on $R^+$ with asymptotically zero drift and finite second moments of jumps which is positive recurrent. A power-like asymptotic behaviour of the invariant tail distribution is proven; such a heavy-tailed invariant measure happens even if the jumps of the chain are bounded. Our analysis is based on test functions technique and on construction of a harmonic function.
In this paper we are concerned with a sample of asymptotically independent risks. Tail asymptotic probabilities for linear combinations of randomly weighted order statistics are approximated under various assumptions, where the individual tail behaviour has a crucial role. An application is provided for Log-Normal risks.
We study the recurrence/transience phase transition for Markov chains on $\mathbb{R}_+$, $\mathbb{R}$, and $\mathbb{R}^2$ whose increments have heavy tails with exponent in $(1,2)$ and asymptotically zero mean. This is the infinite-variance analogue of the classical Lamperti problem. On $\mathbb{R}_+$, for example, we show that if the tail of the positive increments is about $c y^{-α}$ for an exponent $α\in (1,2)$ and if the drift at $x$ is about $b x^{-γ}$, then the critical regime has $γ= α-1$ and recurrence/transience is determined by the sign of $b + cπ\textrm{cosec} (πα)$. On $\mathbb{R}$…
Allen-Zhu, Gelashvili, Micali, and Shavit construct a sparse, sign-consistent Johnson-Lindenstrauss distribution, and prove that this distribution yields an essentially optimal dimension for the correct choice of sparsity. However, their analysis of the upper bound on the dimension and sparsity requires a complicated combinatorial graph-based argument similar to Kane and Nelson's analysis of sparse JL. We present a simple, combinatorics-free analysis of sparse, sign-consistent JL that yields the same dimension and sparsity upper bounds as the original analysis. Our analysis also yields dimensi…
We study the asymptotic tail behaviour of the first-passage time over a moving boundary for asymptotically $α$-stable Lévy processes with $α<1$. Our main result states that if the left tail of the Lévy measure is regularly varying with index $- α$ and the moving boundary is equal to $1 - t^γ$ for some $γ<1/α$, then the probability that the process stays below the moving boundary has the same asymptotic polynomial order as in the case of a constant boundary. The same is true for the increasing boundary $1 + t^γ$ with $γ<1/α$ under the assumption of a regularly varying right tail with index $- α…
University of Pennsylvania(宾夕法尼亚大学);Cornell University(康奈尔大学)
We study an equivalence of (i) deterministic pathwise statements appearing in the online learning literature (termed \emph{regret bounds}), (ii) high-probability tail bounds for the supremum of a collection of martingales (of a specific form arising from uniform laws of large numbers for martingales), and (iii) in-expectation bounds for the supremum. By virtue of the equivalence, we prove exponential tail bounds for norms of Banach space valued martingales via deterministic regret bounds for the online mirror descent algorithm with an adaptive step size. We extend these results beyond the line…
The extremal behaviour of a Markov chain is typically characterized by its tail chain. For asymptotically dependent Markov chains existing formulations fail to capture the full evolution of the extreme event when the chain moves out of the extreme tail region and for asymptotically independent chains recent results fail to cover well-known asymptotically independent processes such as Markov processes with a Gaussian copula between consecutive values. We use more sophisticated limiting mechanisms that cover a broader class of asymptotically independent processes than current methods, including …
In a large, possibly infinite population, each subject is colored red with probability $p$, independently of the others. Then, a finite sub-population is selected, possibly as a function of the coloring. The imbalance in the sub-population is defined as the difference between the number of reds in it and p times its size. This paper presents high-probability upper bounds (tail-bounds) on this imbalance. To present the upper bounds we define the *UI dimension* --- a new measure for the richness of a set-family. We present three simple rules for upper-bounding the UI dimension of a set-family. O…
We provide a new extension of Breiman's Theorem on computing tail probabilities of a product of random variables to a multivariate setting. In particular, we give a complete characterization of regular variation on cones in $[0,\infty)^d$ under random linear transformations. This allows us to compute probabilities of a variety of tail events, which classical multivariate regularly varying models would report to be asymptotically negligible. We illustrate our findings with applications to risk assessment in financial systems and reinsurance markets under a bipartite network structure.
The tail of the distribution of a sum of a random number of independent and identically distributed nonnegative random variables depends on the tails of the number of terms and of the terms themselves. This situation is of interest in the collective risk model, where the total claim size in a portfolio is the sum of a random number of claims. If the tail of the claim number is heavier than the tail of the claim sizes, then under certain conditions the tail of the total claim size does not change asymptotically if the individual claim sizes are replaced by their expectations. The conditions all…
We deal with a discrete-time two-dimensional quasi-birth-and-death process (2d-QBD process for short) on $\mathbb{Z}_+^2\times S_0$, where $S_0$ is a finite set, and give a complete expression for the asymptotic decay function of the stationary tail probabilities in an arbitrary direction. The 2d-QBD process is a kind of random walk in the quarter plane with a background process. In our previous paper (Queueing Systems, vol. 102, pp. 227-267, 2022), we have obtained the asymptotic decay rate of the stationary tail probabilities in an arbitrary direction and clarified that if the asymptotic dec…
Several classical results on boundary crossing probabilities of Brownian motion and random walks are extended to asymptotically Gaussian random fields, which include sums of i.i.d. random variables with multidimensional indices, multivariate empirical processes, and scan statistics in change-point and signal detection as special cases. Some key ingredients in these extensions are moderate deviation approximations to marginal tail probabilities and weak convergence of the conditional distributions of certain ``clumps'' around high-level crossings. We also discuss how these results are related t…
We derive simple but nearly tight upper and lower bounds for the binomial lower tail probability (with straightforward generalization to the upper tail probability) that apply to the whole parameter regime. These bounds are easy to compute and are tight within a constant factor of $89/44$. Moreover, they are asymptotically tight in the regimes of large deviation and moderate deviation. By virtue of a surprising connection with Ramanujan's equation, we also provide strong evidences suggesting that the lower bound is tight within a factor of $1.26434$. It may even be regarded as the natural lowe…