Heavy-Tailed Runtime Distributions: Heuristics, Models and Optimal Refutations

Author(s):  
Tudor Hulubei ◽  
Barry O’Sullivan
Author(s):  
Carla P. Gomes ◽  
Ashish Sabharwal

It has become well know over time that the performance of backtrack-style complete SAT solvers can vary dramatically depending on “little” details of the heuristics used, such as the way one selects the next variable to branch on and in what order the possible values are assigned to the variable. Extreme variations can result even from simple tie breaking mechanisms necessarily employed in all SAT solvers. The discovery of this extreme runtime variation has been both a stumbling block and an opportunity. This chapter focuses on providing an understanding of this intriguing phenomenon, particularly in terms of the so-called heavy tailed nature of the runtime distributions of systematic SAT solvers. It describes a simple formal model based on expensive mistakes to explain runtime distributions seen in practice, and discusses randomization and restart strategies that can be used to effectively overcome the negative impact of heavy tailed behavior. Finally, the chapter discusses the notion of backdoor variables, which explain the unexpectedly short runs one also often sees in practice.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander von Eye

At the level of manifest categorical variables, a large number of coefficients and models for the examination of rater agreement has been proposed and used. The most popular of these is Cohen's κ. In this article, a new coefficient, κ s , is proposed as an alternative measure of rater agreement. Both κ and κ s allow researchers to determine whether agreement in groups of two or more raters is significantly beyond chance. Stouffer's z is used to test the null hypothesis that κ s = 0. The coefficient κ s allows one, in addition to evaluating rater agreement in a fashion parallel to κ, to (1) examine subsets of cells in agreement tables, (2) examine cells that indicate disagreement, (3) consider alternative chance models, (4) take covariates into account, and (5) compare independent samples. Results from a simulation study are reported, which suggest that (a) the four measures of rater agreement, Cohen's κ, Brennan and Prediger's κ n , raw agreement, and κ s are sensitive to the same data characteristics when evaluating rater agreement and (b) both the z-statistic for Cohen's κ and Stouffer's z for κ s are unimodally and symmetrically distributed, but slightly heavy-tailed. Examples use data from verbal processing and applicant selection.


Author(s):  
Stefan Thurner ◽  
Rudolf Hanel ◽  
Peter Klimekl

Phenomena, systems, and processes are rarely purely deterministic, but contain stochastic,probabilistic, or random components. For that reason, a probabilistic descriptionof most phenomena is necessary. Probability theory provides us with the tools for thistask. Here, we provide a crash course on the most important notions of probabilityand random processes, such as odds, probability, expectation, variance, and so on. Wedescribe the most elementary stochastic event—the trial—and develop the notion of urnmodels. We discuss basic facts about random variables and the elementary operationsthat can be performed on them. We learn how to compose simple stochastic processesfrom elementary stochastic events, and discuss random processes as temporal sequencesof trials, such as Bernoulli and Markov processes. We touch upon the basic logic ofBayesian reasoning. We discuss a number of classical distribution functions, includingpower laws and other fat- or heavy-tailed distributions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1234-1270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Fries ◽  
Jean-Michel Zakoian

Noncausal autoregressive models with heavy-tailed errors generate locally explosive processes and, therefore, provide a convenient framework for modelling bubbles in economic and financial time series. We investigate the probability properties of mixed causal-noncausal autoregressive processes, assuming the errors follow a stable non-Gaussian distribution. Extending the study of the noncausal AR(1) model by Gouriéroux and Zakoian (2017), we show that the conditional distribution in direct time is lighter-tailed than the errors distribution, and we emphasize the presence of ARCH effects in a causal representation of the process. Under the assumption that the errors belong to the domain of attraction of a stable distribution, we show that a causal AR representation with non-i.i.d. errors can be consistently estimated by classical least-squares. We derive a portmanteau test to check the validity of the estimated AR representation and propose a method based on extreme residuals clustering to determine whether the AR generating process is causal, noncausal, or mixed. An empirical study on simulated and real data illustrates the potential usefulness of the results.


Automatica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 109511
Author(s):  
Hao Zhu ◽  
Guorui Zhang ◽  
Yongfu Li ◽  
Henry Leung

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