Decision Theory For Large Scale Outlier Detection Using Aleatoric Uncertainty: With a Note on Bayesian FDR

Ryan Warnick

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arXiv · 2508.01988

Decision Theory For Large Scale Outlier Detection Using Aleatoric Uncertainty: With a Note on Bayesian FDR

Ryan Warnick

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Abstract

Aleatoric and Epistemic uncertainty have achieved recent attention in the literature as different sources from which uncertainty can emerge in stochastic modeling. Epistemic being intrinsic or model based notions of uncertainty, and aleatoric being the uncertainty inherent in the data. We propose a novel decision theoretic framework for outlier detection in the context of aleatoric uncertainty; in the context of Bayesian modeling. The model incorporates bayesian false discovery rate control for multiplicty adjustment, and a new generalization of Bayesian FDR is introduced. The model is applied to simulations based on temporally fluctuating outlier detection where fixing thresholds often results in poor performance due to nonstationarity, and a case study is outlined on on a novel cybersecurity detection. Cyberthreat signals are highly nonstationary; giving a credible stress test of the model.

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Ryan Warnick. 2025-08-04. Decision Theory For Large Scale Outlier Detection Using Aleatoric Uncertainty: With a Note on Bayesian FDR. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01988

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