Related papers: Fast Mixing Markov Chains for Strongly Rayleigh Me…
Markov-chain Monte Carlo sampling has become a standard technique for exploring the posterior distribution of cosmological parameters constrained by observations of CMB anisotropies. Given an infinite amount of time, any MCMC sampler will…
Markov chains are convenient means of generating realizations of networks with a given (joint or otherwise) degree distribution, since they simply require a procedure for rewiring edges. The major challenge is to find the right number of…
Evaluating the degree of partisan districting (Gerrymandering) in a statistical framework typically requires an ensemble of districting plans which are drawn from a prescribed probability distribution that adheres to a realistic and…
A continuous-time Markov chain rate change formula for simulation, model selection, filtering and theory is proven. It is used to develop Markov chain importance sampling, rejection sampling, branching particle filtering algorithms and…
Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods are used to carry out inference in non-linear and non-Gaussian state space models, where the posterior density of the states is approximated using particles. Current approaches usually perform…
We propose quantum algorithms that provide provable speedups for Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods commonly used for sampling from probability distributions of the form $\pi \propto e^{-f}$, where $f$ is a potential function. Our…
The switch chain is a well-known Markov chain for sampling directed graphs with a given degree sequence. While not ergodic in general, we show that it is ergodic for regular degree sequences. We then prove that the switch chain is rapidly…
Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are widely deployed at neutrino and dark matter experiments for photon counting. When multiple photons hit a PMT consecutively, their photo-electron (PE) pulses pile up to hinder the precise measurements of the…
A determinantal point process (DPP) on a collection of $M$ items is a model, parameterized by a symmetric kernel matrix, that assigns a probability to every subset of those items. Recent work shows that removing the kernel symmetry…
The mixing time of a Markov chain determines how fast the iterates of the Markov chain converge to the stationary distribution; however, it does not control the dependencies between samples along the Markov chain. In this paper, we study…
This paper compares two different frameworks recently introduced in the literature for measuring risk in a multi-period setting. The first corresponds to applying a single coherent risk measure to the cumulative future costs, while the…
Since 1997 a considerable effort has been spent to study the mixing time of switch Markov chains on the realizations of graphic degree sequences of simple graphs. Several results were proved on rapidly mixing Markov chains on unconstrained,…
We give a Markov chain based algorithm for sampling almost uniform solutions of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). Assuming a canonical setting for the Lov\'asz local lemma, where each constraint is violated by a small number of…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a fundamental model in sequential decision making. Robust MDPs (RMDPs) extend this framework by allowing uncertainty in transition probabilities and optimizing against the worst-case realization of that…
We demonstrate for the first time that ill-conditioned, non-smooth, constrained distributions in very high dimension, upwards of 100,000, can be sampled efficiently $\textit{in practice}$. Our algorithm incorporates constraints into the…
Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are an important concept in random matrix theory and combinatorics. They have also recently attracted interest in the study of numerical methods for machine learning, as they offer an elegant "missing…
We analyze Riemannian Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (RHMC) for sampling a polytope defined by $m$ inequalities in $\R^n$ endowed with the metric defined by the Hessian of a convex barrier function. The advantage of RHMC over Euclidean methods…
This paper studies parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs), an extension to Markov decision processes (MDPs) where transitions probabilities are described by polynomials over a finite set of parameters. Fixing values for all parameters…
We consider the problem of estimating the measure of subsets in very large networks. A prime tool for this purpose is the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. This algorithm, while extremely useful in many cases, still often suffers…
Labeled continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) describe processes subject to random timing and partial observability. In applications such as runtime monitoring, we must incorporate past observations. The timing of these observations matters…