Abstruct-The problem of predicting the next outcome of an individual binary sequence using finite memory, is considered. The finite-state predictability of an infinite sequence is defined as the minimum fraction of prediction errors that can be made by any finite-state (FS) predictor. It is proved that this FS pre-dictability can be attained by universal sequential prediction schemes. Specifically, an efficient prediction procedure based on the incremental parsing procedure of the Lempel-Ziv data com-pression algorithm is shown to achieve asymptotically the FS predictability. Finally, some relations between compressibility and predictability are pointed out, and the predictability is proposed as an additional measure of the complexity of a sequence. Index Terms-Predictability, compressibility, complexity, fi-nite-state machines, Lempel- Ziv algorithm.

We exhibit an algorithm for portfolio selection that asymptotically outperforms the best stock in the market. Let x i = (x i1 ; x i2 ; : : : ; x im ) t denote the performance of the stock market on day i ; where x ij is the factor by which the j-th stock increases on day i : Let b i = (b i1 ; b i2 ; : : : ; b im ) t ; b ij 0; P j b ij = 1 ; denote the proportion b ij of wealth invested in the j-th stock on day i : Then S n = Q n i=1 b t i x i is the factor by which wealth is increased in n trading days. Consider as a goal the wealth S n = max b Q n i=1 b t x i that can be achieved by the best constant rebalanced portfolio chosen after the stock outcomes are revealed. It can be shown that S n exceeds the best stock, the Dow Jones average, and the value line index at time n: In fact, S n usually exceeds these quantities by an exponential factor. Let x 1 ; x 2 ; : : : ; be an arbitrary sequence of market vectors. It will be shown that the nonanticipating sequence ...

This paper consists of an overview on universal prediction from an information-theoretic perspective. Special attention is given to the notion of probability assignment under the selfinformation loss function, which is directly related to the theory of universal data compression.

A discrete denoising algorithm estimates the input sequence to a discrete memoryless channel (DMC) based on the observation of the entire output sequence. For the case in which the DMC is known and the quality of the reconstruction is evaluated with a given single-letter fidelity criterion, we propose a discrete denoising algorithm that does not assume knowledge of statistical properties of the input sequence. Yet, the algorithm is universal in the sense of asymptotically performing as well as the optimum denoiser that knows the input sequence distribution, which is only assumed to be stationary and ergodic. Moreover, the algorithm is universal also in a semi-stochastic setting, in which the input is an individual sequence, and the randomness is due solely to the channel noise.

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We consider the filtering problem, where a finite-alphabet individual sequence is corrupted by a discrete memoryless channel, and the goal is to causally estimate each sequence component based on the past and present noisy observations. We establish a correspondence between the filtering problem and the problem of prediction of individual sequences which leads to the following result: Given an arbitrary finite set of filters, there exists a filter which performs, with high probability, essentially as well as the best in the set, regardless of the underlying noiseless individual sequence. We use this relationship between the problems to derive a filter guaranteed of attaining the “finite-state filterability” of any individual sequence by leveraging results from the prediction problem.

Abstract: We consider the compound decision problem of estimating a vector of n parameters, known up to a permutation, corresponding to n independent observations, and discuss the difference between two symmetric classes of estimators. The first and larger class is restricted to the set of all permutation invariant estimators. The second class is restricted further to simple symmetric procedures. That is, estimators such that each parameter is estimated by a function of the corresponding observation alone. We show that under mild conditions, the minimal total squared error risks over these two classes are asymptotically equivalent up to essentially O(1) difference.

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Asymptotic efficiency of simple decisions for the compound decision problem ∗