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We consider Monte Carlo approximations to the maximum likelihood estimator in models with intractable norming constants. This paper deals with adaptive Monte Carlo algorithms, which adjust control parameters in the course of simulation. We…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-12-08 Blazej Miasojedow , Wojciech Niemiro , Jan Palczewski , Wojciech Rejchel

This paper studies multi-level stochastic approximation algorithms. Our aim is to extend the scope of the multilevel Monte Carlo method recently introduced by Giles (Giles 2008) to the framework of stochastic optimization by means of…

Probability · Mathematics 2014-08-12 Noufel Frikha

Stochastic optimization in learning and inference often relies on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to approximate gradients when exact computation is intractable. However, finite-time MCMC estimators are biased, and reducing this bias…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-02 Antoine Godichon-Baggioni , Gabriel Lang , Sylvain Le Corff , Julien Stoehr , Sobihan Surendran

Statisticians often use Monte Carlo methods to approximate probability distributions, primarily with Markov chain Monte Carlo and importance sampling. Sequential Monte Carlo samplers are a class of algorithms that combine both techniques to…

Computation · Statistics 2022-06-20 Chenguang Dai , Jeremy Heng , Pierre E. Jacob , Nick Whiteley

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are indispensable when sampling from a complex, high-dimensional distribution by a conventional method is intractable. Even though MCMC is a powerful tool, it is also hard to control and tune in…

Graphics · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Sascha Holl , Gurprit Singh , Hans-Peter Seidel

In order to tackle the problem of sampling from heavy tailed, high dimensional distributions via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, Yang, Latuszy\'nski, and Roberts (2022) (arXiv:2205.12112) introduces the stereographic projection as…

Computation · Statistics 2025-05-19 Cameron Bell , Krzystof Łatuszyński , Gareth O. Roberts

Monte Carlo methods, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), remain the most regularly-used approach for implementing Bayesian inference. However, the computational cost of these approaches usually scales worse than linearly with the…

Computation · Statistics 2024-11-12 Leonardo Ripoli , Richard G. Everitt

An irreversible Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm with skew detailed balance conditions originally proposed by Turitsyn et al. is extended to general discrete systems on the basis of the Metropolis-Hastings scheme. To evaluate the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-04-21 Yuji Sakai , Koji Hukushima

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Heng Yang

Filtering---estimating the state of a partially observable Markov process from a sequence of observations---is one of the most widely studied problems in control theory, AI, and computational statistics. Exact computation of the posterior…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-01-07 Bhaskara Marthi , Hanna Pasula , Stuart Russell , Yuval Peres

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are generally regarded as the gold standard technique for Bayesian inference. They are theoretically well-understood and conceptually simple to apply in practice. The drawback of MCMC is that in…

Computation · Statistics 2019-07-17 Christopher Nemeth , Paul Fearnhead

The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are popular when considering sampling from a high-dimensional random variable $\mathbf{x}$ with possibly unnormalised probability density $p$ and observed data $\mathbf{d}$. However, MCMC requires…

Computation · Statistics 2020-03-11 Haoyun Ying , Keheng Mao , Klaus Mosegaard

Accurate and efficient estimation of rare events probabilities is of significant importance, since often the occurrences of such events have widespread impacts. The focus in this work is on precisely quantifying these probabilities, often…

Computation · Statistics 2019-09-11 Hamed Nikbakht , Konstantinos G. Papakonstantinou

We consider Metropolis Hastings MCMC in cases where the log of the ratio of target distributions is replaced by an estimator. The estimator is based on m samples from an independent online Monte Carlo simulation. Under some conditions on…

Computation · Statistics 2012-06-01 Geoff K. Nicholls , Colin Fox , Alexis Muir Watt

We propose a novel Continuation Multi Level Monte Carlo (CMLMC) algorithm for weak approximation of stochastic models. The CMLMC algorithm solves the given approximation problem for a sequence of decreasing tolerances, ending when the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2015-05-22 Nathan Collier , Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali , Fabio Nobile , Erik von Schwerin , Raul Tempone

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for sampling probability density functions (combined with abundant computational resources) have transformed the sciences, especially in performing probabilistic inferences, or fitting models to data.…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2018-05-23 David W. Hogg , Daniel Foreman-Mackey

We propose quantum algorithms that provide provable speedups for Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods commonly used for sampling from probability distributions of the form $\pi \propto e^{-f}$, where $f$ is a potential function. Our…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-04-07 Guneykan Ozgul , Xiantao Li , Mehrdad Mahdavi , Chunhao Wang

Robotic systems must be able to quickly and robustly make decisions when operating in uncertain and dynamic environments. While Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be used to compute optimal policies with little prior knowledge about the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2016-09-13 Yunpeng Pan , Xinyan Yan , Evangelos Theodorou , Byron Boots

Stochastic gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms are popular samplers for approximate inference, but they are generally biased. We show that many recent versions of these methods (e.g. Chen et al. (2014)) cannot be corrected using…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-02-03 Adrià Garriga-Alonso , Vincent Fortuin

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is a popular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to sample from an unnormalized probability distribution. A leapfrog integrator is commonly used to implement HMC in practice, but its performance can be…

Computation · Statistics 2021-10-28 Marcel Hirt , Michalis K. Titsias , Petros Dellaportas