arXiv preprints from January 1, 2026 through September 5, 2026 — 16:00:39 EST
Controlling generative models is computationally expensive. This is because optimal alignment with a reward function--whether via inference-time steering or fine-tuning--requires estimating the value function. This task demands access to the conditional posterior $p_{1|t}(x_1|x_t)$, the distribution of clean data $x_1$ consistent with...
Laplace learning is a semi-supervised method, a solution for finding missing labels from a partially labeled dataset utilizing the geometry given by the unlabeled data points. The method minimizes a Dirichlet energy defined on a (discrete) graph constructed from the full dataset. In finite dimensions the asymptotics in the large...
Purpose: Covariate adjustment is a powerful statistical technique that can increase efficiency in clinical trials. Recent guidance from the U.S. FDA provided recommendations and best practices for using covariate adjustment. However, there has existed a gap between the extensive statistical literature on covariate adjustment and...
Governments with limited fiscal and administrative capacity need to know which Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propagate progress through the goal system and how quickly. We map the directed interdependence structure of all seventeen goals using a balanced panel of 114 countries observed annually from 2000 to 2024. The goal...
Cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) compare the costs and health outcomes of treatment regimes to inform medical decisions. With observational claims data, CEAs must address nonrandom treatment assignment, administrative censoring, and irregularly spaced medical visits that reflect the continuous timing of care and treatment...
The Bayesian approach provides powerful methods for variable selection. The ability to incorporate sparsity through prior beliefs and account for parameter uncertainty allows Bayesian variable selection to consistently identify which of the variables are active and exhibit strong finite-sample performance. However, Bayesian methods...
In this study, we apply functional regression analysis to identify the specific within-season periods during which temperature and precipitation anomalies most affect crop yields. Using provincial data for Italy from 1952 to 2023, we analyze two major cereals, maize and soft wheat, and quantify how abnormal weather conditions...
Background: Stepped wedge cluster randomized trials (SW-CRTs) involve sequential measurements within clusters over time. Initially, all clusters start in the control condition before crossing over to the intervention on a staggered schedule. In cohort designs, secular trends, cluster-level changes, and individual-level changes (e.g.,...
Design-based inference, also known as randomization-based or finite-population inference, provides a principled framework for trustworthy statistical inference. It attributes randomness solely to the design mechanism, such as treatment assignment, survey sampling, or missingness, without imposing super-population distributional or...
Full conformal prediction is a framework that implicitly formulates distribution-free confidence prediction regions for a wide range of estimators. However, a classical limitation of the full conformal framework is the computation of the confidence prediction regions, which is usually impossible since it requires training infinitely...
In this paper, the solution to the empirical risk minimization problem with $f$-divergence regularization (ERM-$f$DR) is presented and conditions under which the solution also serves as the solution to the minimization of the expected empirical risk subject to an $f$-divergence constraint are established. The proposed approach extends...
This study explores how Bayesian networks (BNs) can improve forecast accuracy compared to logistic regression and recalibration and aggregation methods, using data from the Good Judgment Project. Regularized logistic regression models and a baseline recalibrated aggregate were compared to two types of BNs: structure-learned BNs with...
In this article, we study nonparametric inference problems in the context of multivariate or functional time series, including testing for goodness-of-fit, the presence of a change point in the marginal distribution, and the independence of two time series, among others. Most methodologies available in the existing literature address...
The increasing reliance on human preference feedback to judge AI-generated pseudo labels has created a pressing need for principled, budget-conscious data acquisition strategies. We address the crucial question of how to optimally allocate a fixed annotation budget between ground-truth labels and pairwise preferences in AI. Our...
In this paper, we extend distance correlation to categorical data with general encodings, such as one-hot encoding for nominal variables and semicircle encoding for ordinal variables. Unlike existing methods, our approach leverages the spacing information between categories, which enhances the performance of distance correlation. Two...
Differential item functioning (DIF) is a widely used statistical notion for identifying items that may disadvantage specific groups of test-takers. These groups are often defined by non-manipulable characteristics, e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, or English-language learner (ELL) status. While DIF can be framed as a causal fairness...
Linearly parametrized models are widely used in control and signal processing, with the least-squares (LS) estimate being the archetypical solution. When the input is insufficiently exciting, the LS problem may be unsolvable or numerically unstable. This issue can be resolved through regularization, typically with ridge regression....
Cluster-randomized trials (CRTs) are widely used to evaluate group-level interventions and increasingly collect multiple outcomes capturing complementary dimensions of benefit and risk. Investigators often seek a single global summary of treatment effect, yet existing methods largely focus on single-outcome estimands or rely on...
Interpreting RNA-sequencing data requires identifying coordinated gene expression patterns that correspond to biological pathways. Standard factor models provide useful dimension reduction but typically ignore existing pathway knowledge or incorporate it through restrictive assumptions, limiting interpretability, and reproducibility....
Understanding associations between paired high-dimensional longitudinal datasets is a fundamental yet challenging problem that arises across scientific domains, including longitudinal multi-omic studies. The difficulty stems from the complex, time-varying cross-covariance structure coupled with high dimensionality, which complicates...
This paper addresses a long-standing gap in natural hazard modeling by unifying physics-based fragility functions with real-time post-disaster observations. It introduces a Bayesian framework that continuously refines regional vulnerability estimates as new data emerges. The framework reformulates physics-informed fragility estimates...
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and its momentum variants (Polyak Heavy-Ball and Nesterov) for tracking time-varying optima under strong convexity and smoothness. Our finite-time bounds reveal a sharp decomposition of tracking error into transient, noise-induced, and...
Data-driven damage detection methods achieve damage identification by analyzing changes in damage-sensitive features (DSFs) derived from structural health monitoring (SHM) data. The core reason for their effectiveness lies in the fact that damage or structural state transition can be manifested as changes in the distribution of DSF...
Surface ozone pollution remains a persistent challenge in many metropolitan regions worldwide, as the nonlinear dependence of ozone formation on nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) complicates the design of effective emission control strategies. While chemical transport models provide mechanistic insights, they rely...
Semi- and non-parametric mixture of regressions are a very useful flexible class of mixture of regressions in which some or all of the parameters are non-parametric functions of the covariates. These models are, however, based on the Gaussian assumption of the component error distributions. Thus, their estimation is sensitive to...