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State-space models (SSMs) are commonly used to model time series data where the observations depend on an unobserved latent process. However, inference on the model parameters of an SSM can be challenging, especially when the likelihood of…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are one of the most popular classes of algorithms for sampling from a target probability distribution. A rising trend in recent years consists in analyzing the convergence of MCMC algorithms using…
We consider the problem of hypothesis testing for discrete distributions. In the standard model, where we have sample access to an underlying distribution $p$, extensive research has established optimal bounds for uniformity testing,…
In this paper we study the asymptotic behavior of the Random-Walk Metropolis algorithm on probability densities with two different `scales', where most of the probability mass is distributed along certain key directions with the…
Deterministic dynamics is an essential part of many MCMC algorithms, e.g. Hybrid Monte Carlo or samplers utilizing normalizing flows. This paper presents a general construction of deterministic measure-preserving dynamics using autonomous…
Sampling-based planning is the predominant paradigm for motion planning in robotics. Most sampling-based planners use a global random sampling scheme to guarantee probabilistic completeness. However, most schemes are often inefficient as…
The performance of the Monte Carlo sampling methods relies on the crucial choice of a proposal density. The notion of optimality is fundamental to design suitable adaptive procedures of the proposal density within Monte Carlo schemes. This…
We consider the efficient use of an approximation within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), with subsequent importance sampling (IS) correction of the Markov chain inexact output, leading to asymptotically exact inference. We detail…
We consider versions of the Metropolis algorithm which avoid the inefficiency of rejections. We first illustrate that a natural Uniform Selection Algorithm might not converge to the correct distribution. We then analyse the use of Markov…
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.…
We present a two-stage Metropolis-Hastings algorithm for sampling probabilistic models, whose log-likelihood is computationally expensive to evaluate, by using a surrogate Gaussian Process (GP) model. The key feature of the approach, and…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are widely used in machine learning. One of the major problems with MCMC is the question of how to design chains that mix fast over the whole state space; in particular, how to select the parameters…
The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling algorithm exploits Hamiltonian dynamics to construct efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), which has become increasingly popular in machine learning and statistics. Since HMC uses the gradient…
In latent variable models the parameter estimation can be implemented by using the joint or the marginal likelihood, based on independence or conditional independence assumptions. The same dilemma occurs within the Bayesian framework with…
Accept-reject based Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are the workhorse algorithm for Bayesian inference. These algorithms, like Metropolis-Hastings, require choosing a proposal distribution which is typically informed by the desired…
The increasing size of data sets has lead to variable selection in regression becoming increasingly important. Bayesian approaches are attractive since they allow uncertainty about the choice of variables to be formally included in the…
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods such as Gibbs sampling are finding widespread use in applied statistics and machine learning. These often lead to difficult computational problems, which are increasingly being solved on parallel and…
This paper concerns differentially private Bayesian estimation of the parameters of a population distribution, when a statistic of a sample from that population is shared in noise to provide differential privacy. This work mainly addresses…
Bayesian inference with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is challenging when the likelihood function is irregular and expensive to compute. We explore several sampling algorithms that make use of subset evaluations to reduce computational…
In this work, we present, analyze, and implement a class of Multi-Level Markov chain Monte Carlo (ML-MCMC) algorithms based on independent Metropolis-Hastings proposals for Bayesian inverse problems. In this context, the likelihood function…