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Embarrassingly parallel Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) exploits parallel computing to scale Bayesian inference to large datasets by using a two-step approach. First, MCMC is run in parallel on (sub)posteriors defined on data partitions.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-03-31 Daniel Augusto de Souza , Diego Mesquita , Samuel Kaski , Luigi Acerbi

Sampling and Variational Inference (VI) are two large families of methods for approximate inference that have complementary strengths. Sampling methods excel at approximating arbitrary probability distributions, but can be inefficient. VI…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-03-07 Richard D. Lange , Ari Benjamin , Ralf M. Haefner , Xaq Pitkow

Learning causal relationships among a set of variables, as encoded by a directed acyclic graph, from observational data is complicated by the presence of unobserved confounders. Instrumental variables (IVs) are a popular remedy for this…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-04-17 Jing Zou , Wei Li , Wei Lin

Approximate inference in Gaussian process (GP) models with non-conjugate likelihoods gets entangled with the learning of the model hyperparameters. We improve hyperparameter learning in GP models and focus on the interplay between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-08 Rui Li , ST John , Arno Solin

Due to their uncertainty quantification, Bayesian solutions to inverse problems are the framework of choice in applications that are risk averse. These benefits come at the cost of computations that are in general, intractable. New advances…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-10 Rafael Orozco , Ali Siahkoohi , Mathias Louboutin , Felix J. Herrmann

The effects of different parametrizations on the convergence of Bayesian computational algorithms for hierarchical models are well explored. Techniques such as centering, noncentering and partial noncentering can be used to accelerate…

Computation · Statistics 2015-03-20 Linda S. L. Tan , David J. Nott

Statistical inference methods are fundamentally important in machine learning. Most state-of-the-art inference algorithms are variants of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or variational inference (VI). However, both methods struggle with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-10-17 Yichuan Zhang , José Miguel Hernández-Lobato

We propose a novel approach which employs random sampling to generate an accurate non-uniform mesh for numerically solving Partial Differential Equation Boundary Value Problems (PDE-BVP's). From a uniform probability distribution U over a…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2011-03-29 David Bortz , Andrew Christlieb

Variational methods are widely used for approximate posterior inference. However, their use is typically limited to families of distributions that enjoy particular conjugacy properties. To circumvent this limitation, we propose a family of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-06-22 Samuel Gershman , Matt Hoffman , David Blei

Variational Inference (VI) is a commonly used technique for approximate Bayesian inference and uncertainty estimation in deep learning models, yet it comes at a computational cost, as it doubles the number of trainable parameters to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Christian Marius Lillelund , Martin Magris , Christian Fischer Pedersen

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

Hierarchical models represent a challenging setting for inference algorithms. MCMC methods struggle to scale to large models with many local variables and observations, and variational inference (VI) may fail to provide accurate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-27 Tomas Geffner , Justin Domke

In this paper, we are concerned with how to select significant variables in semiparametric modeling. Variable selection for semiparametric regression models consists of two components: model selection for nonparametric components and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2008-12-18 Runze Li , Hua Liang

Variational inference (VI) combined with data subsampling enables approximate posterior inference over large data sets, but suffers from poor local optima. We first formulate a deterministic annealing approach for the generic class of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-05-31 Stephan Mandt , James McInerney , Farhan Abrol , Rajesh Ranganath , David Blei

The stochastic variational inference (SVI) paradigm, which combines variational inference, natural gradients, and stochastic updates, was recently proposed for large-scale data analysis in conjugate Bayesian models and demonstrated to be…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-02-05 Rishit Sheth , Roni Khardon

We describe an embarrassingly parallel, anytime Monte Carlo method for likelihood-free models. The algorithm starts with the view that the stochasticity of the pseudo-samples generated by the simulator can be controlled externally by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-12-03 Edward Meeds , Max Welling

We propose nonparametric identification and semiparametric estimation of joint potential outcome distributions in the presence of confounding. First, in settings with observed confounding, we derive tighter, covariate-informed bounds on the…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-19 Jianle Sun , Kun Zhang

Distributed model fitting refers to the process of fitting a mathematical or statistical model to the data using distributed computing resources, such that computing tasks are divided among multiple interconnected computers or nodes, often…

Computation · Statistics 2024-06-04 Xiaofei Wu , Rongmei Liang , Fabio Roli , Marcello Pelillo , Jing Yuan

We have utilized the non-conjugate Variational Bayesian (VB) method for the problem of the sparse Poisson regression model. To provide approximate conjugacy in the model, the likelihood is approximated by a quadratic function, yielding…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-06 Mitra Kharabati , Morteza Amini , Mohammad Arashi

This paper introduces the $f$-divergence variational inference ($f$-VI) that generalizes variational inference to all $f$-divergences. Initiated from minimizing a crafty surrogate $f$-divergence that shares the statistical consistency with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-06 Neng Wan , Dapeng Li , Naira Hovakimyan