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Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo (PMCMC) is a general computational approach to Bayesian inference for general state space models. Our article scales up PMCMC in terms of the number of observations and parameters by generating the…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-07-04 David Gunawan , Chris Carter , Robert Kohn

Inferential models (IMs) offer prior-free, Bayesian-like posterior degrees of belief designed for statistical inference, which feature a frequentist-like calibration property that ensures reliability of said inferences. The catch is that…

Computation · Statistics 2025-07-09 Ryan Martin

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

We present a Bayesian approach to machine learning with probabilistic programs. In our approach, training on available data is implemented as inference on a hierarchical model. The posterior distribution of model parameters is then used to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-19 David Tolpin

We propose a method to efficiently integrate truncated probability densities. The method uses Markov chain Monte Carlo method to sample from a probability density matching the function being integrated. The required normalisation or…

Computation · Statistics 2013-12-10 A. John Arul , Kannan Iyer

Recursive calls over recursive data are useful for generating probability distributions, and probabilistic programming allows computations over these distributions to be expressed in a modular and intuitive way. Exact inference is also…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2023-03-28 David Chiang , Colin McDonald , Chung-chieh Shan

We present an efficient algorithm for the inference of stochastic block models in large networks. The algorithm can be used as an optimized Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, with a fast mixing time and a much reduced susceptibility to…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2014-01-14 Tiago P. Peixoto

The Linear Ballistic Accumulator (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) model is used as a measurement tool to answer questions about applied psychology. The analyses based on this model depend upon the model selected and its estimated parameters.…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-03-03 David Gunawan , Guy E. Hawkins , Minh-Ngoc Tran , Robert Kohn , Scott Brown

Probabilistic programming languages can simplify the development of machine learning techniques, but only if inference is sufficiently scalable. Unfortunately, Bayesian parameter estimation for highly coupled models such as regressions and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-03-10 Yutian Chen , Vikash Mansinghka , Zoubin Ghahramani

Compared to the wide array of advanced Monte Carlo methods supported by modern probabilistic programming languages (PPLs), PPL support for variational inference (VI) is less developed: users are typically limited to a predefined selection…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2024-06-25 McCoy R. Becker , Alexander K. Lew , Xiaoyan Wang , Matin Ghavami , Mathieu Huot , Martin C. Rinard , Vikash K. Mansinghka

We propose a new computationally efficient sampling scheme for Bayesian inference involving high dimensional probability distributions. Our method maps the original parameter space into a low-dimensional latent space, explores the latent…

Computation · Statistics 2019-10-15 Babak Shahbaba , Luis Martinez Lomeli , Tian Chen , Shiwei Lan

Lifted probabilistic inference algorithms have been successfully applied to a large number of symmetric graphical models. Unfortunately, the majority of real-world graphical models is asymmetric. This is even the case for relational…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-12-02 Guy Van den Broeck , Mathias Niepert

Many of today's probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) have brittle inference performance: the performance of the underlying inference algorithm is very sensitive to the precise way in which the probabilistic program is written. A…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Ellie Y. Cheng , Todd Millstein , Guy Van den Broeck , Steven Holtzen

Bayesian reasoning in linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) is challenging and often requires advanced sampling techniques like Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). A common approach is to write the model in a probabilistic programming language…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Jinlin Lai , Justin Domke , Daniel Sheldon

Causal inference can be formalized as Bayesian inference that combines a prior distribution over causal models and likelihoods that account for both observations and interventions. We show that it is possible to implement this approach…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-01 Sam Witty , Alexander Lew , David Jensen , Vikash Mansinghka

We develop a scalable multi-step Monte Carlo algorithm for inference under a large class of nonparametric Bayesian models for clustering and classification. Each step is "embarrassingly parallel" and can be implemented using the same Markov…

Computation · Statistics 2018-06-08 Yang Ni , Peter Müller , Maurice Diesendruck , Sinead Williamson , Yitan Zhu , Yuan Ji

We present two Monte Carlo sampling algorithms for probabilistic inference that guarantee polynomial-time convergence for a larger class of network than current sampling algorithms provide. These new methods are variants of the known…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-18 Malcolm Pradhan , Paul Dagum

This lecture note provides a self-contained introduction to Bayesian inference and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for parameter estimation in epidemic models. Using the classical Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) compartmental…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-18 Augustine Okolie

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is arguably the dominant statistical inference algorithm used in most popular "first-order differentiable" Probabilistic Programming Languages (PPLs). However, the fact that HMC uses derivative information…

Computation · Statistics 2019-05-31 Bradley Gram-Hansen , Yuan Zhou , Tobias Kohn , Tom Rainforth , Hongseok Yang , Frank Wood

There is increasing interest to develop Bayesian inferential algorithms for point process models with intractable likelihoods. A purpose of this paper is to illustrate the utility of using simulation based strategies, including Approximate…

Computation · Statistics 2026-02-02 Chaoyi Lu , Nial Friel