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Related papers: Unbiased estimators and multilevel Monte Carlo

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We present a novel multilevel Monte Carlo approach for estimating quantities of interest for stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). Drawing inspiration from [Giles and Szpruch: Antithetic multilevel Monte Carlo estimation for…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-04-15 Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali , Andreas Stein

We study Monte Carlo estimation of the expected value of sample information (EVSI) which measures the expected benefit of gaining additional information for decision making under uncertainty. EVSI is defined as a nested expectation in which…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2020-10-05 Tomohiko Hironaka , Michael B. Giles , Takashi Goda , Howard Thom

In this short note we provide an unbiased multilevel Monte Carlo estimator of the log marginal likelihood and discuss its application to variational Bayes.

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-12-24 Takashi Goda , Kei Ishikawa

Multi-model Monte Carlo methods, such as multi-level Monte Carlo (MLMC) and multifidelity Monte Carlo (MFMC), allow for efficient estimation of the expectation of a quantity of interest given a set of models of varying fidelities. Recently,…

Computation · Statistics 2020-12-07 Geoffrey F. Bomarito , Patrick E. Leser , James E. Warner , William P. Leser

Estimating the Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence between language models has many applications, e.g., reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), interpretability, and knowledge distillation. However, computing the exact KL…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-28 Afra Amini , Tim Vieira , Ryan Cotterell

This work introduces a new method designed for Bayesian deep learning called scalable Bayesian Monte Carlo (SBMC). The method is comprised of a model and an algorithm. The model interpolates between a point estimator and the posterior. The…

This article considers the sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) approximation of ratios of normalizing constants associated to posterior distributions which in principle rely on continuum models. Therefore, the Monte Carlo estimation error and the…

Computation · Statistics 2016-03-04 Pierre Del Moral , Ajay Jasra , Kody Law , Yan Zhou

We consider the problem of estimating expectations with respect to a target distribution with an unknown normalizing constant, and where even the unnormalized target needs to be approximated at finite resolution. Under such an assumption,…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2023-06-29 Xinzhu Liang , Shangda Yang , Simon L. Cotter , Kody J. H. Law

The randomized midpoint Langevin Monte Carlo (RLMC), introduced by Shen and Lee (2019), is a variant of classical Unadjusted Langevin Algorithm. It was shown in the literature that the RLMC is an efficient algorithm for approximating…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Ruinan Li , Tian Shen , Zhonggen Su

The expected value of partial perfect information (EVPPI) denotes the value of eliminating uncertainty on a subset of unknown parameters involved in a decision model. The EVPPI can be regarded as a decision-theoretic sensitivity index, and…

Computation · Statistics 2016-04-06 Takashi Goda

While multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) methods for the numerical approximation of partial differential equations with random coefficients enjoy great popularity, combinations with spatial adaptivity seem to be rare. We present an adaptive MLMC…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2017-12-20 Ralf Kornhuber , Evgenia Youett

We consider the numerical approximation of $\mathbb{P}[G\in \Omega]$ where the $d$-dimensional random variable $G$ cannot be sampled directly, but there is a hierarchy of increasingly accurate approximations $\{G_\ell\}_{\ell\in\mathbb{N}}$…

Computational Finance · Quantitative Finance 2021-07-21 Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali , Jonathan Spence , Aretha Teckentrup

Many machine learning problems involve Monte Carlo gradient estimators. As a prominent example, we focus on Monte Carlo variational inference (MCVI) in this paper. The performance of MCVI crucially depends on the variance of its stochastic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-07-05 Alexander Buchholz , Florian Wenzel , Stephan Mandt

We propose a new framework of variance-reduced Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) methods for sampling from an $L$-smooth and $m$-strongly log-concave distribution, based on a unified formulation of biased and unbiased variance reduction…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-10 Zhengmian Hu , Feihu Huang , Heng Huang

We propose a methodology to parallelize Hamiltonian Monte Carlo estimators. Our approach constructs a pair of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo chains that are coupled in such a way that they meet exactly after some random number of iterations. These…

Computation · Statistics 2018-08-28 Jeremy Heng , Pierre E. Jacob

We consider stochastic optimization when one only has access to biased stochastic oracles of the objective and the gradient, and obtaining stochastic gradients with low biases comes at high costs. This setting captures various optimization…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-22 Yifan Hu , Jie Wang , Xin Chen , Niao He

We show how to extend a recently proposed multi-level Monte Carlo approach to the continuous time Markov chain setting, thereby greatly lowering the computational complexity needed to compute expected values of functions of the state of the…

Probability · Mathematics 2011-11-23 David F. Anderson , Desmond J. Higham

Consider a process, stochastic or deterministic, obtained by using a numerical integration scheme, or from Monte-Carlo methods involving an approximation to an integral, or a Newton-Raphson iteration to approximate the root of an equation.…

Computational Finance · Quantitative Finance 2010-06-17 Don McLeish

In this article we consider the approximation of expectations w.r.t. probability distributions associated to the solution of partial differential equations (PDEs); this scenario appears routinely in Bayesian inverse problems. In practice,…

Computation · Statistics 2017-02-07 Alexandros Beskos , Ajay Jasra , Kody Law , Raul Tempone , Yan Zhou

Nested integration problems arise in various scientific and engineering applications, including Bayesian experimental design, financial risk assessment, and uncertainty quantification. These nested integrals take the form $\int f\left(\int…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-06-17 Arved Bartuska , André Gustavo Carlon , Luis Espath , Sebastian Krumscheid , Raúl Tempone