On learning parametric distributions from quantized samples

05/25/2021

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by   Septimia Sârbu, et al.

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We consider the problem of learning parametric distributions from their quantized samples in a network. Specifically, n agents or sensors observe independent samples of an unknown parametric distribution; and each of them uses k bits to describe its observed sample to a central processor whose goal is to estimate the unknown distribution. First, we establish a generalization of the well-known van Trees inequality to general L_p-norms, with p > 1, in terms of Generalized Fisher information. Then, we develop minimax lower bounds on the estimation error for two losses: general L_p-norms and the related Wasserstein loss from optimal transport.