Related papers: A Control Variate Approach for Improving Efficienc…
We explain in detail how to estimate mean values and assess statistical errors for arbitrary functions of elementary observables in Monte Carlo simulations. The method is to estimate and sum the relevant autocorrelation functions, which is…
This paper considers a new approach to using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) in contexts where one may adopt multilevel (ML) Monte Carlo. The underlying problem is to approximate expectations w.r.t. an underlying probability measure that is…
We describe a regression-based method, generally referred to as the Least Squares Monte Carlo (LSMC) method, to speed up exposure calculations of a portfolio. We assume that the portfolio contains several exotic derivatives that are priced…
We propose a sampling-based framework for finite-horizon trajectory and policy optimization under differentiable dynamics by casting controller design as inference. Specifically, we minimize a KL-regularized expected trajectory cost, which…
Uncertainty quantification (UQ) includes the characterization, integration, and propagation of uncertainties that result from stochastic variations and a lack of knowledge or data in the natural world. Monte Carlo (MC) method is a…
We investigate the stability of a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method applied to the problem of sampling from a target distribution on $\mathbb{R}^d$ for large $d$. It is well known that using a single importance sampling step one produces…
We study Monte Carlo estimation of the expected value of sample information (EVSI) which measures the expected benefit of gaining additional information for decision making under uncertainty. EVSI is defined as a nested expectation in which…
A novel method called mixed variable system Monte Carlo tree search (MVSMCTS) formulation is presented for optimization problems considering various types of variables with single and mixed continuous-discrete system. This method utilizes a…
Sampling from a log-concave distribution function is one core problem that has wide applications in Bayesian statistics and machine learning. While most gradient free methods have slow convergence rate, the Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) that…
The expected information gain is an important quality criterion of Bayesian experimental designs, which measures how much the information entropy about uncertain quantity of interest $\theta$ is reduced on average by collecting relevant…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling is an important and commonly used tool for the analysis of hierarchical models. Nevertheless, practitioners generally have two options for MCMC: utilize existing software that generates a black-box…
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) has emerged as a powerful Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to sample from complex continuous distributions. However, a fundamental limitation of HMC is that it can not be applied to distributions with…
We introduce a Monte Carlo Virtual Element estimator based on Virtual Element discretizations for stochastic elliptic partial differential equations with random diffusion coefficients. We prove estimates for the statistical approximation…
In many problems, complex non-Gaussian and/or nonlinear models are required to accurately describe a physical system of interest. In such cases, Monte Carlo algorithms are remarkably flexible and extremely powerful approaches to solve such…
We show that Markov couplings can be used to improve the accuracy of Markov chain Monte Carlo calculations in some situations where the steady-state probability distribution is not explicitly known. The technique generalizes the notion of…
Variational inference lies at the core of many state-of-the-art algorithms. To improve the approximation of the posterior beyond parametric families, it was proposed to include MCMC steps into the variational lower bound. In this work we…
In this article we consider computing expectations w.r.t.~probability laws associated to a certain class of stochastic systems. In order to achieve such a task, one must not only resort to numerical approximation of the expectation, but…
We analyse a multilevel Monte Carlo method for the approximation of distribution functions of univariate random variables. Since, by assumption, the target distribution is not known explicitly, approximations have to be used. We provide an…
Sampling-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a flexible control framework that can reason about non-smooth dynamics and cost functions. Recently, significant work has focused on the use of machine learning to improve the performance of…
A new methodology is presented for the construction of control variates to reduce the variance of additive functionals of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers. Our control variates are definedthrough the minimization of the asymptotic…