Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 210 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Put and . Use the scan statistic and the statistical hypothesis testing ruleThe union bound and the Hoeffding inequality give , since . Conditional on index , accepting the null hypothesis implies . The assumed separation gives , so this threshold lies more than below the alternative expected value . The lower-tail Hoeffding inequality therefore gives . Averaging the conditional error over the mixture model gives as well.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 210 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a kernel for density estimation with integral one and a smoothing bandwidth , the univariate kernel density estimator isIts expected value isThis is the convolution identity. It holds wherever the integral is defined, in particular everywhere for the bounded kernel used below. For a nonnegative kernel for density estimation, Tonelli theorem also gives the identity as an extended nonnegative integral. A signed kernel for density estimation instead requires absolute integrability for this interchange.
For the centred unit-width uniform kernel, substitute :Put . The Taylor theorem with Lagrange remainder givesThe odd function term integrates to zero, while . Hence the bias of a kernel density estimator obeysThis is a second-order pointwise bias bound for kernel density estimation. Existence and boundedness of the second derivative suffice for the stated remainder; continuity of that derivative is not an extra assumption.
For concentration, writeThe are independent and identically distributed random variables with a Bernoulli distribution, and . The required concentration bound follows from the Hoeffding lemma. We prove its Bernoulli case directly. Withwe have and , where is the exponentially tilted success probability. Therefore for every real . If or , the centred variable is identically zero and the same bound holds directly.
Independence and the exponential form of the Markov inequality now give, for ,Choose . Applying the same argument to the lower tail and adding the probabilities proves the Hoeffding inequality
To obtain the requested variance constant, use the additional bound that a probability is at most one. Set and . The tail integral formula for moments, justified by Tonelli theorem, yieldsThusThe clipping at one is essential for this integration argument to give that constant. It is an instance of a second moment bound from a clipped Gaussian tail. The exact Bernoulli distribution calculation also gives , an even stronger bound.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 210 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let and . To prove the Hoeffding lemma, take a centered random variable and its cumulant-generating function . Under exponential tilting, is the variance of . The Popoviciu inequality on variances givessince under any such tilt the support remains , and . Because , integrating twice gives for ; applying the same argument to handles the opposite tail.
The independence of the gives . The Markov inequality, in the Chernoff bound argument, yieldswhere the minimum is at when . Apply the same argument to and add the bounds to obtain the Hoeffding inequality:If , every centered is identically zero and the tail probability is zero; the displayed exponential is interpreted by its zero-variance limit.
For the Bennett inequality, write , and first assume and . For , boundedness and centering giveFor , expanding the moment-generating function and using the permitted interchange of sum and expected value,Negative odd moments cause no difficulty because the estimate is an upper bound term by term. The independence of the and the Chernoff bound then giveThe derivative vanishes at , and substitution gives with the Bennett rate function . The same absolute bounds apply to , soIf , all centered are zero almost surely; if , the same is immediate. Handle those cases directly rather than divide by zero. Both derived concentration inequalities also hold with , by the same Markov inequality argument or by letting a smaller positive threshold increase to .
For the binomial distribution, write with independent and identically distributed random variables having the Bernoulli distribution with parameter . Then has range , width one, and variance . For large , , so and . Set .
The Hoeffding inequality givesAfter truncation at one, this is asymptotically the trivial probability bound. The Bennett inequality instead givesSince and by a Taylor expansion,Thus the Bennett bounds for sparse binomial fluctuations yieldThe Bennett inequality supplies the smaller raw exponential bound for every fixed and all sufficiently large . If , clipping probability upper bounds at one makes both eventually trivial; for , the Bennett inequality retains a nontrivial limiting bound. This distinction avoids claiming a probability improvement after clipping when both raw bounds exceed one.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 223 4 a Solution 2026-09-28
Assume first that , set , and replace the last observations by . Among the remaining observations, letThe contaminated median exceeds wheneverThe right-hand threshold divided by tends toTherefore, for all sufficiently large , it is at most for some . The Hoeffding inequality givesThe supremum over adversarial perturbations is at least this explicit construction, proving the claim. When , replacing at least half the sample makes the conclusion immediate.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 205 3 d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
On a grid with mesh proportional to , Hoeffding inequality and a union bound giveThe density of has exponential tails. A Chernoff bound therefore shows that is bounded by an absolute constant except on an event of probability . On that event, both the empirical kernel and are uniformly Lipschitz, so every pair is approximated by its nearest grid pair with total error at most . Enlarging constants and using yields
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 208 1 c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03