There are two commonly used formalisms in average case complexity theory: problems with a single global probability measure on parameter space or problems with a family of such probability measures. Previous posts about optimal predictors focused on the family approach. In this post we give the formalism for global measures.
will denote the one-element set.
Given a probability measure on , a set, , stands for the maximal runtime of for , .
A unidistributional estimation problem is a pair where is a probability measure on and is an arbitrary function.
Given appropriate sets , , consider , polynomial and . The triple is called a -scheme of signature when
(i) The runtime of is bounded by with polynomial.
(ii) for some .
A -scheme of signature will also be called a -predictor.
Given , , will denote the -valued random variable where is sampled from the probability measure . We will also use the notation .
Fix an error space of rank 1.
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem and a -predictor. is called a -optimal predictor for when for any -predictor , there is s.t.
-optimal predictors for unidistributional problems have properties and existence theorems analogical to -optimal predictor schemes, where the role of the rank 2 error space is taken by the rank 1 error space (see Definition 8). The theorems are listed below. The proofs of Theorem 4, Theorem 8 (which is stated stronger than previous analogues) and Theorem 10 are given in the appendix. Adapting the other proofs is straightforward.
Suppose . Consider a unidistributional estimation problem and a -optimal predictor for . Suppose , are s.t.
Define
Assume that either have a number of digits logarithmically bounded in or produces outputs with a number of digits logarithmically bounded in (by Theorem A.7 if any -optimal predictor exists for then a -optimal predictor with this property exists as well). Then, .
Consider a probability measure on and s.t. . Suppose is a -optimal predictor for and is a -optimal predictor for . Then is a -optimal predictor for .
Consider a probability measure on and s.t. . Suppose is a -optimal predictor for and is a -optimal predictor for . Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
Fix an error space of rank 1. A probability measure on is called -sampleable when there is a -scheme of signature such that
is called a -sampler for .
Consider an error space of rank 1. A unidistributional estimation problem is called -generatable when there is a -scheme of of signature such that
(i) is a -sampler for .
(ii)
is called a -generator for .
Consider , unidistributional estimation problems with respective -optimal predictors and . Assume is -sampleable and is -generatable. Define by . Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
Consider a probability measure on and , . Assume is a -optimal predictor for and is a -optimal predictor for . Define by . Then is a -optimal predictor for .
Fix a polynomial s.t. . Consider a probability measure on , and non-empty. Assume is a -optimal predictor for and is a -optimal predictor for . Define by
Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
Consider a probability measure on and , -predictors. We say is -similar to relative to (denoted ) when .
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem, a -optimal predictor for and a -predictor. Then, is a -optimal predictor for if and only if .
Consider , unidistributional estimation problems, a -scheme of signature . is called a -pseudo-invertible reduction of to when the following conditions hold:
(i)
(ii)
(iii) There is and a -scheme of signature s.t.
(iv) There is a -scheme of signature s.t.
Such is called a -pseudo-inverse of .
The conditions of Definition 7 are weaker than corresponding definitions in previous posts in the sense that exact equalities were replaced by approximate equalities with error bounds related to . However, analogous relaxations can be done in the "multidistributional" theory too.
Suppose . Consider , unidistributional estimation problems, a -pseudo-invertible reduction of to and a -optimal predictor for . Define by . Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
is the set of bounded functions s.t.
It is easily seen that is a rank 1 error space.
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem. Define by
Define by
Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
There is an oracle machine that accepts an oracle of signature and a polynomial where the allowed oracle calls are for and computes a function of signature s.t. for any a unidistributional estimation problem and a corresponding -generator, is a -optimal predictor for .
The following is the description of . Consider and a polynomial . We describe the computation of where the extra argument of is regarded as internal coin tosses.
We loop over the first words in lexicographic order. Each word is interpreted as a program . We loop over "test runs". At test run , we generate by evaluating for sampled from . We then sample from and compute . At the end of the test runs, we compute the average error . At the end of the loop over programs, the program with the lowest error is selected and the output is produced.
Given , a function is called -moderate when
(i) is non-decreasing in arguments to .
(ii) For any collection of polynomials ,
Fix a unidistributional estimation problem and a -predictor. Then, is -optimal iff there is a -moderate function s.t. for any ,
The proof is analogous to the case of -optimal predictor schemes and we omit it.
Suppose . Fix a unidistributional estimation problem and a corresponding -optimal predictor. Consider a -predictor, and a -scheme of signature . Assume . Then there is s.t.
The proof is analogous to the case of -optimal predictor schemes and we omit it.
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem and a -optimal predictor for . Then there are and a -moderate function s.t. for any ,
Conversely, consider and a -scheme of signature . Suppose that for any -scheme of signature we have
Define to be a -predictor s.t. computing is equivalent to computing rounded to digits after the binary point, where . Then, is a -optimal predictor for .
The proof is analogous to the case of -optimal predictor schemes and we omit it.
Consider a probability measure on . Suppose is a -sampler for . Then, s.t. for any bounded function
Since is a -sampler, we get the desired result.
Consider a family of sets and family of probability measures on . Denote . Consider a function and a bounded function. Suppose that
Then it follows that
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem, a -generator for and a bounded function. Then
By Lemma 4 we have
By property (ii) of generators and Lemma 5 we have
Combining the two we get the desired result.
We have
Therefore, for any -scheme of signature
By Lemma 3, it is sufficient to show an appropriate bound for each of the terms on the right hand side. Suppose is a -generator for . Applying Proposition 1 to the first term, we get
where .
Applying Lemma 3 for , we get
where .
Suppose is a -sampler for . Applying Lemma 4 to the second term, we get
where .
Applying Lemma 3 for , we get
where . Again, we got the required bound.
Consider a family of sets and family of probability measures on . Denote . Consider bounded functions and a uniformly bounded family of functions indexed by some set . Suppose that
Then there is s.t.
Consider , unidistributional estimation problems. Suppose is a -pseudo-invertible reduction of to and is it's -pseudo-inverse. Then there is s.t. for any bounded function
Denote . According to the definitive property of
where . Therefore
Consider a -predictor. Let be the -predictor defined by
Applying Lemma 2 we get
where .
Using the definitive property of we can apply Lemma 5 to the left hand side and get
where . Using property (ii) of pseudo-invertible reductions, we get
Using the definition of and Lemma 6 applied via property (i) of pseudo-invertible reductions, we get
where .
Using the definitive property of , Lemma 5 and property (ii) of pseudo-invertible reductions on the right-hand side, we get
where . Applying Proposition 2
where . Applying Lemma 6 via property (i) of pseudo-invertible reductions
Putting everything together
for .
Consider and a non-increasing function. Suppose that
Then
Assume to the contrary that there is and an unbounded sequence s.t.
Define . For any we have
Therefore
Since we can choose an infinite number of non-overlapping intervals of the form , we reach the contradiction
Consider a polynomial . There is a function s.t.
(i)
(ii)For any non-increasing function we have
Given polynomials s.t. for , the proposition for implies the proposition for by setting
Therefore, it is enough to prove to proposition for polynomials of the form for .
We have
For any
Since we can choose satisfying condition (i) so that
It follows that
Applying Proposition 3, we get the desired result.
Consider a unidistributional estimation problem, , -predictors. Suppose a polynomial and are s.t.
Then s.t.
Define .
By Proposition 4 we have
Consider . Define . Then, .
Suppose is s.t. . We claim that . Assume to the contrary that for some we have an unbounded sequence s.t. . We can then choose s.t. and . But this implies which is a contradiction.
Consider a -predictor. Choose a non-constant polynomial s.t. evaluating involves running until it halts "naturally" (such exists because runs in at most polynomial time and has at most logarithmic advice). Given , consider the execution of . The standard deviation of with respect to the internal coin tosses of is at most . Applying Lemma 6 followed by Lemma 4, the expectation value is where for . By Chebyshev's inequality,
Hence
The standard deviation of for any is also at most . The expectation value is where . Therefore
The extra factor comes from summing probabilities over programs. Combining we get
By Proposition 5, we can assume is non-increasing without loss of generality. Therefore
Applying Lemma 7 we get the desired result.