Sampling methodology for intractable counting problems

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Many problems in statistics involve distributions which are difficult to sample from, or combinatorial objects which are difficult to enumerate. These challenges are typically resolved through approximate sampling or counting algorithms. However, the focus of the literature thus far on approximation algorithms has been on general results. This thesis examines situations for which these general bounds are extremely loose. First, the problem of sampling perfect matchings of bipartite graphs is considered. While Markov chains on the space of perfect matchings have been shown to mix in polynomial time, restricting to certain subclasses of bipartite graphs allows for massive improvements to the runtime bounds. Furthermore, a sequential importance sampling algorithm, which has an asymptotically exponential runtime, is shown to outperform MCMC algorithms for a large range of graph sizes. The second part of this thesis concerns the problem of independence testing against a uniform alternative in a two-way table. A novel algorithm for carrying out the conditional volume test is proposed and is shown to be consistent and computationally more efficient than existing estimators

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource
Extent 1 online resource
Place California
Place [Stanford, California]
Publisher [Stanford University]
Copyright date 2020; ©2020
Publication date 2020; 2020
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Author Tsao, Andrew
Degree supervisor Diaconis, Persi
Thesis advisor Diaconis, Persi
Thesis advisor Charikar, Moses
Thesis advisor Chatterjee, Sourav
Degree committee member Charikar, Moses
Degree committee member Chatterjee, Sourav
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Statistics

Subjects

Genre Theses
Genre Text

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Andrew Tsao
Note Submitted to the Department of Statistics
Thesis Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2020 by Andrew Tsao

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