Related papers: The Computational Complexity of Estimating Converg…
We provide quantitative upper bounds on the total variation mixing time of the Markov chain corresponding to the unadjusted Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (uHMC) algorithm. For two general classes of models and fixed time discretization step size…
When the initial and transition probabilities of a finite Markov chain in discrete time are not well known, we should perform a sensitivity analysis. This can be done by considering as basic uncertainty models the so-called credal sets that…
The utility of a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is, in large part, determined by the size of the spectral gap of the corresponding Markov operator. However, calculating (and even approximating) the spectral gaps of practical Monte Carlo…
Adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, which automatically tune their parameters based on past samples, have proved extremely useful in practice. The self-tuning mechanism makes them `non-Markovian', which means that their…
Performing numerical integration when the integrand itself cannot be evaluated point-wise is a challenging task that arises in statistical analysis, notably in Bayesian inference for models with intractable likelihood functions. Markov…
We introduce a revised derivation of the bitwise Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detector. The new approach resolves the previously reported high SNR stalling problem of MCMC without the need for…
Parametric Markov chains occur quite naturally in various applications: they can be used for a conservative analysis of probabilistic systems (no matter how the parameter is chosen, the system works to specification); they can be used to…
We study continuous-time Markov chains on the non-negative integers under mild regularity conditions (in particular, the set of jump vectors is finite and both forward and backward jumps are possible). Based on the so-called flux balance…
Multimodal structures in the sampling density (e.g. two competing phases) can be a serious problem for traditional Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), because correct sampling of the different structures can only be guaranteed for infinite…
We initiate the study of mixing times of Markov chain under monotone censoring. Suppose we have some Markov Chain $M$ on a state space $\Omega$ with stationary distribution $\pi$ and a monotone set $A \subset \Omega$. We consider the chain…
We consider Markov chains which are polynomially mixing, in a weak sense expressed in terms of the space of functions on which the mixing speed is controlled. In this context, we prove polynomial large and moderate deviations inequalities.…
The use of MCMC algorithms in high dimensional Bayesian problems has become routine. This has spurred so-called convergence complexity analysis, the goal of which is to ascertain how the convergence rate of a Monte Carlo Markov chain scales…
Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling methods often suffer from long correlation times. Consequently, these methods must be run for many steps to generate an independent sample. In this paper a method is proposed to overcome this difficulty.…
Using Markov chain Monte Carlo to sample from posterior distributions was the key innovation which made Bayesian data analysis practical. Notoriously, however, MCMC is hard to tune, hard to diagnose, and hard to parallelize. This…
Approximate Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) offers the promise of more rapid sampling at the cost of more biased inference. Since standard MCMC diagnostics fail to detect these biases, researchers have developed computable Stein discrepancy…
We study the convergence of random function iterations for finding an invariant measure of the corresponding Markov operator. We call the problem of finding such an invariant measure the stochastic fixed point problem. This generalizes…
The switch chain is a well-known Markov chain for sampling directed graphs with a given degree sequence. While not ergodic in general, we show that it is ergodic for regular degree sequences. We then prove that the switch chain is rapidly…
There is a lack of simple and scalable algorithms for uncertainty quantification. Bayesian methods quantify uncertainty through posterior and predictive distributions, but it is difficult to rapidly estimate summaries of these…
A fundamental problem in network analysis is clustering the nodes into groups which share a similar connectivity pattern. Existing algorithms for community detection assume the knowledge of the number of clusters or estimate it a priori…
The switch chain is a well-studied Markov chain which can be used to sample approximately uniformly from the set $\Omega(\boldsymbol{d})$ of all graphs with a given degree sequence $\boldsymbol{d}$. Polynomial mixing time (rapid mixing) has…