Related papers: The Correlated Pseudo-Marginal Method
Approximate inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGMs) can be grouped into deterministic methods and Monte-Carlo-based methods. The former can often provide accurate and rapid inferences, but are typically associated with biases…
Implementing Bayesian inference is often computationally challenging in applications involving complex models, and sometimes calculating the likelihood itself is difficult. Synthetic likelihood is one approach for carrying out inference…
Likelihood-free methods are an essential tool for performing inference for implicit models which can be simulated from, but for which the corresponding likelihood is intractable. However, common likelihood-free methods do not scale well to…
Probabilistic programs with mixed support (both continuous and discrete latent random variables) commonly appear in many probabilistic programming systems (PPSs). However, the existence of the discrete random variables prohibits many basic…
We consider the problem of drawing samples from posterior distributions formed under a Dirichlet prior and a truncated multinomial likelihood, by which we mean a Multinomial likelihood function where we condition on one or more counts being…
The Markov chain Monte Carlo method (MCMC), especially the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, is a widely used technique for sampling from a target probability distribution $P$ on a state space $\Omega$ and applied to various problems such…
Fitting stochastic kinetic models represented by Markov jump processes within the Bayesian paradigm is complicated by the intractability of the observed data likelihood. There has therefore been considerable attention given to the design of…
In this paper, we study the asymptotic variance of sample path averages for inhomogeneous Markov chains that evolve alternatingly according to two different $\pi$-reversible Markov transition kernels $P$ and $Q$. More specifically, our main…
Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) are used as statistical models in many disciplines. However, intractable likelihood functions for SDEs make inference challenging, and we need to resort to simulation-based techniques to estimate and…
The Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is a fundamental Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for sampling and inference. With the advent of Big Data, distributed and parallel variants of MCMC methods are attracting increased attention. In this…
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…
Most Markov chain Monte Carlo methods operate in discrete time and are reversible with respect to the target probability. Nevertheless, it is now understood that the use of non-reversible Markov chains can be beneficial in many contexts. In…
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling methods provide a mechanism for defining distant proposals with high acceptance probabilities in a Metropolis-Hastings framework, enabling more efficient exploration of the state space than standard…
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithms which combine numerical approximation of Hamiltonian dynamics on finite intervals with stochastic refreshment and Metropolis correction are popular sampling schemes, but it is known that they may…
Composite likelihoods are increasingly used in applications where the full likelihood is analytically unknown or computationally prohibitive. Although the maximum composite likelihood estimator has frequentist properties akin to those of…
In Bayesian inverse problems, one aims at characterizing the posterior distribution of a set of unknowns, given indirect measurements. For non-linear/non-Gaussian problems, analytic solutions are seldom available: Sequential Monte Carlo…
We present a framework for approximate Bayesian inference when only a limited number of noisy log-likelihood evaluations can be obtained due to computational constraints, which is becoming increasingly common for applications of complex…
We study a Monte Carlo algorithm for simulation of probability distributions based on stochastic step functions, and compare to the traditional Metropolis/Hastings method. Unlike the latter, the step function algorithm can produce an…
This article describes a method for using optimization to derive efficient independent transition functions for Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations. Our interest is in sampling from a posterior density $\pi(x)$ for problems in which the…
In this expository paper we abstract and describe a simple MCMC scheme for sampling from intractable target densities. The approach has been introduced in Gon\c{c}alves et al. (2017a) in the specific context of jump-diffusions, and is based…