Related papers: Vertical-likelihood Monte Carlo
We investigate in this paper an alternative method to simulation based recursive importance sampling procedure to estimate the optimal change of measure for Monte Carlo simulations. We propose an algorithm which combines (vector and…
Monte Carlo methods to evaluate and maximize the likelihood function enable the construction of confidence intervals and hypothesis tests, facilitating scientific investigation using models for which the likelihood function is intractable.…
In Bayesian inference, the approximation of integrals of the form $\psi = \mathbb{E}_{F}{l(X)} = \int_{\chi} l(\mathbf{x}) d F(\mathbf{x})$ is a fundamental challenge. Such integrals are crucial for evidence estimation, which is important…
We introduce overdispersed black-box variational inference, a method to reduce the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator of the gradient in black-box variational inference. Instead of taking samples from the variational distribution, we use…
In recent decades, a number of profound theorems concerning approximation of hard counting problems have appeared. These include estimation of the permanent, estimating the volume of a convex polyhedron, and counting (approximately) the…
Recent work has suggested using Monte Carlo methods based on piecewise deterministic Markov processes (PDMPs) to sample from target distributions of interest. PDMPs are non-reversible continuous-time processes endowed with momentum, and…
This paper focuses on variational inference with intractable likelihood functions that can be unbiasedly estimated. A flexible variational approximation based on Gaussian mixtures is developed, by adopting the mixture population Monte Carlo…
We investigate the problem of computing a nested expectation of the form $\mathbb{P}[\mathbb{E}[X|Y] \!\geq\!0]\!=\!\mathbb{E}[\textrm{H}(\mathbb{E}[X|Y])]$ where $\textrm{H}$ is the Heaviside function. This nested expectation appears, for…
A new method called "variational sampling" is proposed to estimate integrals under probability distributions that can be evaluated up to a normalizing constant. The key idea is to fit the target distribution with an exponential family model…
Conventional Monte Carlo simulations are stochastic in the sense that the acceptance of a trial move is decided by comparing a computed acceptance probability with a random number, uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. Here we consider the…
Estimating failure probabilities of engineering systems is an important problem in many engineering fields. In this work we consider such problems where the failure probability is extremely small (e.g $\leq10^{-10}$). In this case, standard…
We propose a new framework for how to use sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms for inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGM). Via a sequential decomposition of the PGM we find a sequence of auxiliary distributions defined on a…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a sampling-based method for estimating features of probability distributions. MCMC methods produce a serially correlated, yet representative, sample from the desired distribution. As such it can be…
Monte Carlo methods, Variational Inference, and their combinations play a pivotal role in sampling from intractable probability distributions. However, current studies lack a unified evaluation framework, relying on disparate performance…
In this paper, we analyse a method for approximating the distribution function and density of a random variable that depends in a non-trivial way on a possibly high number of independent random variables, each with support on the whole real…
For random variables produced through the inverse transform method, approximate random variables are introduced, which are produced by approximations to a distribution's inverse cumulative distribution function. These approximations are…
A Monte Carlo method for computing the action of a matrix exponential for a certain class of matrices on a vector is proposed. The method is based on generating random paths, which evolve through the indices of the matrix, governed by a…
Importance sampling (IS) is valuable in reducing the variance of Monte Carlo sampling for many areas, including finance, rare event simulation, and Bayesian inference. It is natural and obvious to combine quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods…
We present an original simulation-based method to estimate likelihood ratios efficiently for general state-space models. Our method relies on a novel use of the conditional Sequential Monte Carlo (cSMC) algorithm introduced in…
Probabilistic models are conceptually powerful tools for finding structure in data, but their practical effectiveness is often limited by our ability to perform inference in them. Exact inference is frequently intractable, so approximate…