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Every probability distribution can be approximated up to a given precision by a phase-type distribution, i.e. a distribution encoded by a continuous time Markov chain (CTMC). However, an excessive number of states in the corresponding CTMC…

The widespread popularity of replica exchange and expanded ensemble algorithms for simulating complex molecular systems in chemistry and biophysics has generated much interest in enhancing phase space mixing of these protocols, thus…

Recent advances in machine learning have led to the development of new methods for enhancing Monte Carlo methods such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and importance sampling (IS). One such method is normalizing flows, which use a neural…

In this paper, we address technical difficulties that arise when applying Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to hierarchical models designed to perform clustering in the space of latent parameters of subject-wise generative models.…

Systems of interacting continuous-time Markov chains are a powerful model class, but inference is typically intractable in high dimensional settings. Auxiliary information, such as noisy observations, is typically only available at discrete…

In this paper we consider fully Bayesian inference in general state space models. Existing particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms use an augmented model that takes into account all the variable sampled in a sequential Monte…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are used to estimate features of interest of a distribution. The Monte Carlo error in estimation has an asymptotic normal distribution whose multivariate nature has so far been ignored in the MCMC…

As it has become common to use many computer cores in routine applications, finding good ways to parallelize popular algorithms has become increasingly important. In this paper, we present a parallelization scheme for Markov chain Monte…

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Belief Propagation (BP) are the most popular algorithms for computational inference in Graphical Models (GM). In principle, MCMC is an exact probabilistic method which, however, often suffers from…

In this paper we build on previous work which uses inferences techniques, in particular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, to solve parameterized control problems. We propose a number of modifications in order to make this approach…

We introduce Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms based on numerical approximations of piecewise-deterministic Markov processes obtained with the framework of splitting schemes. We present unadjusted as well as adjusted algorithms,…

This paper deals with a complete bipartite matching problem with the objective of finding an optimal matching that maximizes a certain generic predefined utility function on the set of all matchings. After proving the NP-hardness of the…

Markov-chain Monte Carlo sampling has become a standard technique for exploring the posterior distribution of cosmological parameters constrained by observations of CMB anisotropies. Given an infinite amount of time, any MCMC sampler will…

Density tempering (also called density annealing) is a sequential Monte Carlo approach to Bayesian inference for general state models; it is an alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo. When applied to state space models, it moves a…

The Metropolis algorithm is arguably the most fundamental Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. But the algorithm is not guaranteed to converge to the desired distribution in the case of multivariate binary distributions (e.g., Ising…

Modern problems in astronomical Bayesian inference require efficient methods for sampling from complex, high-dimensional, often multi-modal probability distributions. Most popular methods, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling, perform…

In this paper we study the ergodicity properties of some adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms (MCMC) that have been recently proposed in the literature. We prove that under a set of verifiable conditions, ergodic averages calculated…

Inference after model selection presents computational challenges when dealing with intractable conditional distributions. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a common method for sampling from these distributions, but its slow convergence…

We investigate the increase in efficiency of simulated and parallel tempering MCMC algorithms when using non-reversible updates to give them "momentum". By making a connection to a certain simple discrete Markov chain, we show that, under…

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) has been progressively incorporated within the statistician's toolbox as an alternative sampling method in settings when standard Metropolis-Hastings is inefficient. HMC generates a Markov chain on an augmented…