Concentration Inequalities for Random Sets

Erel Segal-Halevi, Avinatan Hassidim

Published 2016-12-27Version 1

In a large, possibly infinite population, each subject is colored red with probability $p$, independently of the others. Then, a finite sub-population is selected, possibly as a function of the coloring. The imbalance in the sub-population is defined as the difference between the number of reds in it and p times its size. This paper presents high-probability upper bounds (tail-bounds) on this imbalance. To present the upper bounds we define the *UI dimension* --- a new measure for the richness of a set-family. We present three simple rules for upper-bounding the UI dimension of a set-family. Our upper bounds on the imbalance in a sub-population depend only on the size of the sub-population and on the UI dimension of its support. We relate our results to known concepts from machine learning, particularly the VC dimension and Rademacher complexity.