arXiv Machine Learning

Cross-Fitted Clipped Covariance Estimation with a Data-Driven Tail-Energy Criterion

arXiv:2602. 14020v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Heavy-tailed data make covariance estimation sensitive to the clipping level: stronger clipping reduces variance but increases bias.

Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jun 21

Distribution-Aware Robust Bilevel Optimization: Quantile-Guided Huber Updates in Two-Timescale Stochastic Approximation

Bilevel optimization (BLO) is fundamental to hierarchical decision-making but suffers from critical instability under heavy-tailed stochastic noise. Existing variance-reduction techniques typically rely on myopic magnitude checks, which fail to distinguish informative geometric signals from impulsive outliers.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 12

Robust Langevin Sampling under State-Dependent Heavy-Tailed Noise with Applications to LLM Fine-Tuning

arXiv:2610. 12865v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Existing convergence guarantees for non-log-concave sampling with stochastic gradient Langevin Monte Carlo (SG-LMC) typically assume globally Lipschitz gradients and uniformly bounded noise variance.

By M. Berk Sahin, Ege C. Kaya, Arda Fazla, Behzad Sharif, Abolfazl Hashemi
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 20

Inference and Uncertainty Quantification for Streaming $r$-PCA

The paper tackles two key gaps in streaming PCA using Oja's algorithm: it establishes sharp operator‑norm convergence for general‑rank subspaces under sub‑Gaussian data, and it provides distributional inference for the resulting subspace estimator. The authors remove non‑vanishing remainder terms from existing analyses, achieving rates that match minimax bounds in both dense‑tail and sparse‑tail regimes. They further develop a linearization of Oja’s iterates, enabling high‑dimensional Gaussian approximations and an online multiplier bootstrap for practical inference.

By Haoshu Xu, Hongzhe Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 7

A Location-Invariant Estimator of Extremal Quantile Treatment Effects for Heavy-Tailed Distributions

The paper introduces a new estimator for extremal quantile treatment effects (QTEs) that remains invariant under location shifts of heavy‑tailed outcome distributions. It adapts the Fraga estimator of the extreme value index to a causal framework via inverse propensity score weighting and replaces the traditional extrapolation with a difference‑based scheme that cancels the location parameter. The authors prove consistency, asymptotic normality, and provide a variance estimator, with simulations demonstrating location invariance, threshold stability, and correct coverage.

By Xin Yu, Shuwei Huang, Jicheng Liu, Jielin Tang, Bolin Wang, Yunxiao Zhang, Tian Zhao