English
Related papers

Related papers: Stochastic Annealing for Variational Inference

200 papers

Variational inference (VI) is a popular method for approximating intractable posterior distributions in Bayesian inference and probabilistic machine learning. In this paper, we introduce a general framework for quantifying the statistical…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-07-18 Chenyang Zhong , Sumit Mukherjee , Bodhisattva Sen

The paper considers a distributed algorithm for global minimization of a nonconvex function. The algorithm is a first-order consensus + innovations type algorithm that incorporates decaying additive Gaussian noise for annealing, converging…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-23 Brian Swenson , Soummya Kar , H. Vincent Poor , José M. F. Moura

Logistic regression involving high-dimensional covariates is a practically important problem. Often the goal is variable selection, i.e., determining which few of the many covariates are associated with the binary response. Unfortunately,…

Computation · Statistics 2025-02-18 Yiqi Tang , Ryan Martin

Latent Gaussian models (LGMs) are widely used in statistics and machine learning. Bayesian inference in non-conjugate LGMs is difficult due to intractable integrals involving the Gaussian prior and non-conjugate likelihoods. Algorithms…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2013-06-06 Mohammad Emtiyaz Khan , Aleksandr Y. Aravkin , Michael P. Friedlander , Matthias Seeger

One of the challenges in model-based control of stochastic dynamical systems is that the state transition dynamics are involved, and it is not easy or efficient to make good-quality predictions of the states. Moreover, there are not many…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-08-02 Behnoosh Parsa , Keshav Rajasekaran , Franziska Meier , Ashis G. Banerjee

We present a stochastic setting for optimization problems with nonsmooth convex separable objective functions over linear equality constraints. To solve such problems, we propose a stochastic Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-01-23 Hua Ouyang , Niao He , Alexander Gray

Bayesian predictive inference propagates parameter uncertainty to quantities of interest through the posterior-predictive distribution. In practice, this is typically performed using a two-stage procedure: first approximating the posterior…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-06 Nan Feng , Xun Huan

Variational inference algorithms have proven successful for Bayesian analysis in large data settings, with recent advances using stochastic variational inference (SVI). However, such methods have largely been studied in independent or…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-11-07 Nicholas J. Foti , Jason Xu , Dillon Laird , Emily B. Fox

Estimation and prediction in high dimensional multivariate factor stochastic volatility models is an important and active research area because such models allow a parsimonious representation of multivariate stochastic volatility. Bayesian…

Computation · Statistics 2021-04-27 David Gunawan , Robert Kohn , David Nott

Stochastic optimization techniques are standard in variational inference algorithms. These methods estimate gradients by approximating expectations with independent Monte Carlo samples. In this paper, we explore a technique that uses…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-15 Mike Wu , Noah Goodman , Stefano Ermon

Owing to the recent advances in "Big Data" modeling and prediction tasks, variational Bayesian estimation has gained popularity due to their ability to provide exact solutions to approximate posteriors. One key technique for approximate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-01 Hamza Anwar , Quanyan Zhu

This paper presents studies on a deterministic annealing algorithm based on quantum annealing for variational Bayes (QAVB) inference, which can be seen as an extension of the simulated annealing for variational Bayes (SAVB) inference. QAVB…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-08-12 Issei Sato , Kenichi Kurihara , Shu Tanaka , Hiroshi Nakagawa , Seiji Miyashita

This paper presents studies on a deterministic annealing algorithm based on quantum annealing for variational Bayes (QAVB) inference, which can be seen as an extension of the simulated annealing for variational Bayes (SAVB) inference. QAVB…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2009-05-28 Issei Sato , Kenichi Kurihara , Shu Tanaka , Hiroshi Nakagawa , Seiji Miyashita

We consider stochastic optimization under distributional uncertainty, where the unknown distributional parameter is estimated from streaming data that arrive sequentially over time. Moreover, data may depend on the decision of the time when…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-17 Tianyi Liu , Yifan Lin , Enlu Zhou

Stochastic optimization algorithms with variance reduction have proven successful for minimizing large finite sums of functions. Unfortunately, these techniques are unable to deal with stochastic perturbations of input data, induced for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-11-16 Alberto Bietti , Julien Mairal

We present a scalable approach to performing approximate fully Bayesian inference in generic state space models. The proposed method is an alternative to particle MCMC that provides fully Bayesian inference of both the dynamic latent states…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-02-13 Marcel Hirt , Petros Dellaportas

We present a new algorithm for approximate inference in probabilistic programs, based on a stochastic gradient for variational programs. This method is efficient without restrictions on the probabilistic program; it is particularly…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2013-01-08 David Wingate , Theophane Weber

Bayesian inference typically relies on specifying a parametric model that approximates the data-generating process. However, misspecified models can yield poor convergence rates and unreliable posterior calibration. Bayesian empirical…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-27 Kenyon Ng , Weichang Yu , Howard D. Bondell

The analysis of data from multiple experiments, such as observations of several individuals, is commonly approached using mixed-effects models, which account for variation between individuals through hierarchical representations. This makes…

Computation · Statistics 2026-03-05 Henrik Häggström , Sebastian Persson , Marija Cvijovic , Umberto Picchini

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