Related papers: Estimating standard errors for importance sampling…
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a powerful method for carrying out Bayesian inference when the likelihood is computationally intractable. However, a drawback of ABC is that it is an approximate method that induces a systematic…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) provides asymptotically consistent estimates of intractable posterior expectations as the number of iterations tends to infinity. However, in large data applications, MCMC can be computationally expensive per…
The Importance Markov chain is a novel algorithm bridging the gap between rejection sampling and importance sampling, moving from one to the other through a tuning parameter. Based on a modified sample of an instrumental Markov chain…
We show that the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator that is importance sampled from an exponential family is a convex function of the natural parameter of the distribution. With this insight, we propose an adaptive importance sampling…
Importance sampling is often used in machine learning when training and testing data come from different distributions. In this paper we propose a new variant of importance sampling that can reduce the variance of importance sampling-based…
Simulated tempering (ST) is an established Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for sampling from a multimodal density $\pi(\theta)$. Typically, ST involves introducing an auxiliary variable $k$ taking values in a finite subset of $[0,1]$…
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…
Importance sampling with data-driven proposal distributions is widely used in practice. A common workflow first generates an auxiliary sample of size $N$ from an approximation of the target distribution, constructs a density estimate $\hat…
Markov chain Monte Carlo is a class of algorithms for drawing Markovian samples from high-dimensional target densities to approximate the numerical integration associated with computing statistical expectation, especially in Bayesian…
In this paper we consider Bayesian estimation for the parameters of inverse Gaussian distribution. Our emphasis is on Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. We provide complete implementation of the Gibbs sampler algorithm. Assuming an…
In large-scale genomic applications vast numbers of molecular features are scanned in order to find a small number of candidates which are linked to a particular disease or phenotype. This is a variable selection problem in the "large p,…
Large deviation theory has provided important clues for the choice of importance sampling measures for Monte Carlo evaluation of exceedance probabilities. However, Glasserman and Wang [Ann. Appl. Probab. 7 (1997) 731--746] have given…
When an unbiased estimator of the likelihood is used within a Metropolis--Hastings chain, it is necessary to trade off the number of Monte Carlo samples used to construct this estimator against the asymptotic variances of averages computed…
Many random processes can be simulated as the output of a deterministic model accepting random inputs. Such a model usually describes a complex mathematical or physical stochastic system and the randomness is introduced in the input…
Monte Carlo (MC) sampling methods are widely applied in Bayesian inference, system simulation and optimization problems. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are a well-known class of MC methods which generate a Markov chain with…
We discuss several techniques for the evaluation of the generalised Lyapunov exponents which characterise the growth of products of random matrices in the large-deviation regime. A Monte Carlo algorithm that performs importance sampling…
In this paper, I proof that Importance Sampling estimates based on dependent sample sets are consistent under certain conditions. This can be used to reduce variance in Bayesian Models with factorizing likelihoods, using sample sets that…
In this work, we empirically explore the question: how can we assess the quality of samples from some target distribution? We assume that the samples are provided by some valid Monte Carlo procedure, so we are guaranteed that the collection…
Statisticians often use Monte Carlo methods to approximate probability distributions, primarily with Markov chain Monte Carlo and importance sampling. Sequential Monte Carlo samplers are a class of algorithms that combine both techniques to…
Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are often deemed too computationally intensive to be of any practical use for big data applications, and in particular for inference on datasets containing a large number $n$ of individual data points, also…