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Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are foundational algorithms for Bayesian inference and probabilistic modeling. However, most MCMC algorithms are inherently sequential and their time complexity scales linearly with the sequence…

Computation · Statistics 2025-12-03 David M. Zoltowski , Skyler Wu , Xavier Gonzalez , Leo Kozachkov , Scott W. Linderman

Approximate Bayesian inference for models with computationally expensive, black-box likelihoods poses a significant challenge, especially when the posterior distribution is complex. Many inference methods struggle to explore the parameter…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-11 Francesco Silvestrin , Chengkun Li , Luigi Acerbi

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is a powerful Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for estimating expectations with respect to continuous un-normalized probability distributions. MCMC estimators typically have higher variance than…

Computation · Statistics 2020-03-04 Dan Piponi , Matthew D. Hoffman , Pavel Sountsov

We develop a novel Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method that exploits a hierarchy of models of increasing complexity to efficiently generate samples from an unnormalized target distribution. Broadly, the method rewrites the Multilevel…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-09-05 Mikkel B. Lykkegaard , Tim J. Dodwell , Colin Fox , Grigorios Mingas , Robert Scheichl

Methods that bypass analytical evaluations of the likelihood function have become an indispensable tool for statistical inference in many fields of science. These so-called likelihood-free methods rely on accepting and rejecting simulations…

It was known from Metropolis et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 21 (1953) 1087--1092] that one can sample from a distribution by performing Monte Carlo simulation from a Markov chain whose equilibrium distribution is equal to the target distribution.…

Methodology · Statistics 2011-04-13 Martin A. Tanner , Wing H. Wong

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are sampling methods that have become a commonly used tool in statistics, for example to perform Monte Carlo integration. As a consequence of the increase in computational power, many variations of…

Computation · Statistics 2021-06-14 F. Din-Houn Lau , Sebastian Krumscheid

In this paper we address the problem of Monte Carlo approximation of posterior probability distributions in stochastic kinetic models (SKMs). SKMs are multivariate Markov jump processes that model the interactions among species in…

Methodology · Statistics 2014-04-22 Eugenia Koblents , Joaquín Míguez

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation methods are widely used to assess parametric uncertainties of hydrologic models conditioned on measurements of observable state variables. However, when the model is CPU-intensive and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-06-18 Jiangjiang Zhang , Jun Man , Guang Lin , Laosheng Wu , Lingzao Zeng

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) proves to be powerful for Bayesian inference and in particular for exoplanet radial velocity fitting because MCMC provides more statistical information and makes better use of data than common approaches like…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2014-01-30 Fengji Hou , Jonathan Goodman , David W. Hogg , Jonathan Weare , Christian Schwab

We present a novel Bayesian inference tool that uses a neural network to parameterise efficient Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) proposals. The target distribution is first transformed into a diagonal, unit variance Gaussian by a series of…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2020-06-03 Adam Moss

Many problems in the physical sciences, machine learning, and statistical inference necessitate sampling from a high-dimensional, multi-modal probability distribution. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, the ubiquitous tool for this…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2022-05-12 Marylou Gabrié , Grant M. Rotskoff , Eric Vanden-Eijnden

From basic considerations of the Lie group that preserves a target probability measure, we derive the Barker, Metropolis, and ensemble Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, as well as variants of waste-recycling Metropolis-Hastings…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-01-29 Steve Huntsman

In this article we consider Bayesian parameter inference associated to partially-observed stochastic processes that start from a set B0 and are stopped or killed at the first hitting time of a known set A. Such processes occur naturally…

Computation · Statistics 2012-01-19 Ajay Jasra , Nikolas Kantas

In statistical analysis, Monte Carlo (MC) stands as a classical numerical integration method. When encountering challenging sample problem, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a commonly employed method. However, the MCMC estimator is biased…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2024-11-05 Jiarui Du , Zhijian He

We propose a general framework using spike-and-slab prior distributions to aid with the development of high-dimensional Bayesian inference. Our framework allows inference with a general quasi-likelihood function. We show that highly…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-08-21 Yves Atchade , Anwesha Bhattacharyya

We introduce a new Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach designed for efficient sampling of highly correlated and multimodal posteriors. Parallel tempering, though effective, is a costly technique for sampling such posteriors. Our…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2014-10-01 Benjamin Farr , Vicky Kalogera , Erik Luijten

We consider the efficient use of an approximation within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), with subsequent importance sampling (IS) correction of the Markov chain inexact output, leading to asymptotically exact inference. We detail…

Computation · Statistics 2019-04-15 Jordan Franks

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are often used for approximate inference inside learning, but their slow mixing can be difficult to diagnose and the approximations can seriously degrade learning. To alleviate these issues, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-02-25 Jacob Steinhardt , Percy Liang

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a popular class of statistical methods for simulating autocorrelated draws from target distributions, including posterior distributions in Bayesian analysis. An important consideration in using simulated…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-06-16 Benjamin E. Deonovic , Brian J. Smith