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Latent Gaussian models (LGMs) are a popular class of Bayesian hierarchical models that include Gaussian processes, as well as certain spatial models and mixed-effect models. Efficient Bayesian inference of LGMs often requires marginalizing…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-21 Jinlin Lai , Charles C. Margossian , Daniel R. Sheldon

Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations (INLA) has been a successful approximate Bayesian inference framework since its proposal by Rue et al. (2009). The increased computational efficiency and accuracy when compared with sampling-based…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-02 Janet van Niekerk , Elias Krainski , Denis Rustand , Haavard Rue

Bayesian inference on non-Gaussian data is often non-analytic and requires computationally expensive approximations such as sampling or variational inference. We propose an approximate inference framework primarily designed to be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-12 Marius Hobbhahn , Philipp Hennig

A classical tool for approximating integrals is the Laplace method. The first-order, as well as the higher-order Laplace formula is most often written in coordinates without any geometrical interpretation. In this article, motivated by a…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2023-12-27 Flavien Léger , François-Xavier Vialard

Ordinary differential equations are arguably the most popular and useful mathematical tool for describing physical and biological processes in the real world. Often, these physical and biological processes are observed with errors, in which…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-07-26 Sarat C. Dass , Jaeyong Lee , Kyoungjae Lee , Jonghun Park

Laplace approximations are a standard tool for computationally efficient inference in latent Gaussian models, but they fail for quantile regression with the asymmetric Laplace likelihood because the observed Hessian vanishes almost…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-21 Andrea Nava , Fabio Sigrist

Using a hierarchical construction, we develop methods for a wide and flexible class of models by taking a fully parametric approach to generalized linear mixed models with complex covariance dependence. The Laplace approximation is used to…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-07-31 Jay M. Ver Hoef , Eryn Blagg , Michael Dumelle , Philip M. Dixon , Dale L. Zimmerman , Paul Conn

In this paper, several modifications are introduced to the functional approximation method iterLap to reduce the approximation error, including stopping rule adjustment, proposal of new residual function, starting point selection for…

Methodology · Statistics 2015-09-23 Tiep Mai , Simon Wilson

Approximate Bayesian inference for the class of latent Gaussian models can be achieved efficiently with integrated nested Laplace approximations (INLA). Based on recent reformulations in the INLA methodology, we propose a further extension…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-02-27 Shourya Dutta , Janet van Niekerk , Haavard Rue

Latent Gaussian models are an extremely popular, flexible class of models. Bayesian inference for these models is, however, tricky and time consuming. Recently, Rue, Martino and Chopin introduced the Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation…

Computation · Statistics 2011-05-17 Daniel Simpson , Finn Lindgren , Håvard Rue

We apply a recently proposed approximation method to the evaluation of non-Gaussian integral and anharmonic oscillator. The method makes use of the truncated perturbation series by recasting it via the modified Laplace integral…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2009-10-30 Naoki Mizutani , Hirofumi Yamada

This paper introduces a Laplace approximation to Bayesian inference in Dirichlet regression models, which can be used to analyze a set of variables on a simplex exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the…

The Laplace approximation is a popular method for constructing a Gaussian approximation to the Bayesian posterior and thereby approximating the posterior mean and variance. But approximation quality is a concern. One might consider using…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-06-17 Mikołaj J. Kasprzak , Ryan Giordano , Tamara Broderick

Laplace's method, a family of asymptotic methods used to approximate integrals, is presented as a potential candidate for the tool box of techniques used for knowledge acquisition and probabilistic inference in belief networks with…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-28 Adriano Azevedo-Filho , Ross D. Shachter

The Laplace approximation (LA) has been proposed as a method for approximating the marginal likelihood of statistical models with latent variables. However, the approximate maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) based on the LA are often…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-07-21 Jeongseop Han , Youngjo Lee

We present a new method for approximating real-valued functions on ${\mathbb R}^+$ by linear combinations of exponential functions with complex coefficients. The approach is based on a multi-point Pad\'e approximation of the Laplace…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-05-05 Alexey Kuznetsov , Armin Mohammadioroojeh

Logistic Gaussian process (LGP) priors provide a flexible alternative for modelling unknown densities. The smoothness properties of the density estimates can be controlled through the prior covariance structure of the LGP, but the challenge…

Computation · Statistics 2016-11-01 Jaakko Riihimäki , Aki Vehtari

We consider Bayesian variable selection in sparse high-dimensional regression, where the number of covariates $p$ may be large relative to the samples size $n$, but at most a moderate number $q$ of covariates are active. Specifically, we…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2015-03-31 Rina Foygel Barber , Mathias Drton , Kean Ming Tan

In Bayesian inference, a widespread technique to compute integrals against a high-dimensional posterior is to use a Gaussian proxy to the posterior known as the Laplace approximation. We address the question of accuracy of the approximation…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-06-07 Anya Katsevich

We study high-dimensional Laplace-type integrals $I(\lambda):=(\lambda/2\pi)^{d/2}\int_{\mathbb R^d} g(x)e^{-\lambda f(x)}dx$ in the regime where both $d$ and $\lambda$ are large. Existing rigorous Laplace-expansion results in growing…

Classical Analysis and ODEs · Mathematics 2026-03-13 Alexander Katsevich , Anya Katsevich