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While generalized linear mixed models are a fundamental tool in applied statistics, many specifications, such as those involving categorical factors with many levels or interaction terms, can be computationally challenging to estimate due…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-12-03 Max Goplerud , Omiros Papaspiliopoulos , Giacomo Zanella

Variational Bayesian inference is an important machine-learning tool that finds application from statistics to robotics. The goal is to find an approximate probability density function (PDF) from a chosen family that is in some sense…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-27 Timothy D. Barfoot , Gabriele M. T. D'Eleuterio

We consider the problem of approximate Bayesian inference in log-supermodular models. These models encompass regular pairwise MRFs with binary variables, but allow to capture high-order interactions, which are intractable for existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-02-25 Josip Djolonga , Andreas Krause

In Bayesian inference, the posterior distributions are difficult to obtain analytically for complex models such as neural networks. Variational inference usually uses a parametric distribution for approximation, from which we can easily…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-02-01 Futoshi Futami , Zhenghang Cui , Issei Sato , Masashi Sugiyama

Mean-field variational inference (MFVI) is a widely used method for approximating high-dimensional probability distributions by product measures. This paper studies the stability properties of the mean-field approximation when the target…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-06-10 Shunan Sheng , Bohan Wu , Alberto González-Sanz , Marcel Nutz

Bayesian phylogenetic inference is currently done via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) with simple proposal mechanisms. This hinders exploration efficiency and often requires long runs to deliver accurate posterior estimates. In this paper,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-05-24 Cheng Zhang , Frederick A. Matsen

Explaining how overparametrized neural networks simultaneously achieve low risk and zero empirical risk on benchmark datasets is an open problem. PAC-Bayes bounds optimized using variational inference (VI) have been recently proposed as a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-06 Konstantinos Pitas

While stochastic variational inference is relatively well known for scaling inference in Bayesian probabilistic models, related methods also offer ways to circumnavigate the approximation of analytically intractable expectations. The key…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-09-08 David A. Knowles

Solving Bayesian inference problems approximately with variational approaches can provide fast and accurate results. Capturing correlation within the approximation requires an explicit parametrization. This intrinsically limits this…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-01-31 Jakob Knollmüller , Torsten A. Enßlin

Variational Bayesian posterior inference often requires simplifying approximations such as mean-field parametrisation to ensure tractability. However, prior work has associated the variational mean-field approximation for Bayesian neural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-07 Richard Kurle , Ralf Herbrich , Tim Januschowski , Yuyang Wang , Jan Gasthaus

We describe a variational approximation method for efficient inference in large-scale probabilistic models. Variational methods are deterministic procedures that provide approximations to marginal and conditional probabilities of interest.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2011-05-30 T. S. Jaakkola , M. I. Jordan

Bayesian approach, as a useful tool for quantifying uncertainties, has been widely used for solving inverse problems of partial differential equations (PDEs). One of the key difficulties for employing Bayesian approach for the issue is how…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-02-09 Junxiong Jia , Qian Zhao , Zongben Xu , Deyu Meng , Yee Leung

Distributed inference/estimation in Bayesian framework in the context of sensor networks has recently received much attention due to its broad applicability. The variational Bayesian (VB) algorithm is a technique for approximating…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-11-30 Junhao Hua , Chunguang Li

In variational inference, the benefits of Bayesian models rely on accurately capturing the true posterior distribution. We propose using neural samplers that specify implicit distributions, which are well-suited for approximating complex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-10 Anshuk Uppal , Kristoffer Stensbo-Smidt , Wouter Boomsma , Jes Frellsen

Gaussian variational approximation is a popular methodology to approximate posterior distributions in Bayesian inference especially in high dimensional and large data settings. To control the computational cost while being able to capture…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-07 Bingxin Zhou , Junbin Gao , Minh-Ngoc Tran , Richard Gerlach

Mixture models are widely used in Bayesian statistics and machine learning, in particular in computational biology, natural language processing and many other fields. Variational inference, a technique for approximating intractable…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-08-03 Badr-Eddine Chérief-Abdellatif , Pierre Alquier

Deriving Bayesian inference for exponential random graph models (ERGMs) is a challenging "doubly intractable" problem as the normalizing constants of the likelihood and posterior density are both intractable. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…

Computation · Statistics 2019-11-26 Linda S. L. Tan , Nial Friel

We develop a theory of finite-dimensional polyhedral subsets over the Wasserstein space and optimization of functionals over them via first-order methods. Our main application is to the problem of mean-field variational inference, which…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-06-02 Yiheng Jiang , Sinho Chewi , Aram-Alexandre Pooladian

The mean field variational Bayes method is becoming increasingly popular in statistics and machine learning. Its iterative Coordinate Ascent Variational Inference algorithm has been widely applied to large scale Bayesian inference. See Blei…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2017-12-12 Anderson Y. Zhang , Harrison H. Zhou

Bayesian inference allows us to define a posterior distribution over the weights of a generic neural network (NN). Exact posteriors are usually intractable, in which case approximations can be employed. One such approximation - variational…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Andrew Millard , Joshua Murphy , Peter Green , Simon Maskell