English
Related papers

Related papers: Optimal Belief Approximation

200 papers

We give a new characterization of relative entropy, also known as the Kullback-Leibler divergence. We use a number of interesting categories related to probability theory. In particular, we consider a category FinStat where an object is a…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-08-22 John C. Baez , Tobias Fritz

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) has become increasingly prominent as a method for conducting parameter inference in a range of challenging statistical problems, most notably those characterized by an intractable likelihood function.…

In this work, we consider the problem of distributed approximation of functions over multiple-access channels with additive noise. In contrast to previous works, we take fast fading into account and give explicit probability bounds for the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-03-01 Igor Bjelakovic , Matthias Frey , Slawomir Stanczak

We derive a deterministic, non-asymptotic upper bound on the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence of the flow-matching distribution approximation. In particular, if the $L_2$ flow-matching loss is bounded by $\epsilon^2 > 0$, then the KL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-10 Maojiang Su , Jerry Yao-Chieh Hu , Sophia Pi , Han Liu

In this paper, we consider the problem of learning a first-order theorem prover that uses a representation of beliefs in mathematical claims to construct proofs. The inspiration for doing so comes from the practices of human mathematicians…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-07-01 Daniel Huang

Bayesian inference typically relies on specifying a parametric model that approximates the data-generating process. However, misspecified models can yield poor convergence rates and unreliable posterior calibration. Bayesian empirical…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-27 Kenyon Ng , Weichang Yu , Howard D. Bondell

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a powerful method for carrying out Bayesian inference when the likelihood is computationally intractable. However, a drawback of ABC is that it is an approximate method that induces a systematic…

Methodology · Statistics 2015-09-29 Minh Ngoc Tran , Robert Kohn

Message passing algorithms have proved surprisingly successful in solving hard constraint satisfaction problems on sparse random graphs. In such applications, variables are fixed sequentially to satisfy the constraints. Message passing is…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-06-05 Andrea Montanari , Federico Ricci-Tersenghi , Guilhem Semerjian

An efficient algorithm for the determination of Bayesian optimal discriminating designs for competing regression models is developed, where the main focus is on models with general distributional assumptions beyond the "classical" case of…

Computation · Statistics 2015-08-04 Holger Dette , Roman Guchenko , Viatcheslav B. Melas

This paper deals with the taking into account a given set of realizations as constraints in the Kullback-Leibler minimum principle, which is used as a probabilistic learning algorithm. This permits the effective integration of data into…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-05-09 Christian Soize

This paper considers a distributed adaptive optimization problem, where all agents only have access to their local cost functions with a common unknown parameter, whereas they mean to collaboratively estimate the true parameter and find the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-03 Yaqun Yang , Jinlong Lei , Guanghui Wen , Yiguang Hong

Bayesian inference has many advantages for complex models, but standard Monte Carlo methods for summarizing the posterior can be computationally demanding, and it is attractive to consider optimization-based variational methods. Our work…

Computation · Statistics 2025-10-09 Aoxiang Chen , David J. Nott , Linda S. L. Tan

Many datasets give partial information about an ordering or ranking by indicating which team won a game, which item a user prefers, or who infected whom. We define a continuous spin system whose Gibbs distribution is the posterior…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-06-07 George T. Cantwell , Cristopher Moore

We consider approximation or recovery of functions based on a finite number of function evaluations. This is a well-studied problem in optimal recovery, machine learning, and numerical analysis in general, but many fundamental insights were…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-04-07 David Krieg , Mario Ullrich

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a useful class of methods for Bayesian inference when the likelihood function is computationally intractable. In practice, the basic ABC algorithm may be inefficient in the presence of discrepancy…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2015-05-14 Stefano Cabras , Maria Eugenia Castellanos Nueda , Erlis Ruli

In this article, we investigate posterior convergence in nonparametric regression models where the unknown regression function is modeled by some appropriate stochastic process. In this regard, we consider two setups. The first setup is…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-05-04 Debashis Chatterjee , Sourabh Bhattacharya

Ranking and comparing items is crucial for collecting information about preferences in many areas, from marketing to politics. The Mallows rank model is among the most successful approaches to analyse rank data, but its computational…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-04-28 Valeria Vitelli , Øystein Sørensen , Marta Crispino , Arnoldo Frigessi , Elja Arjas

Modern applications of Bayesian inference involve models that are sufficiently complex that the corresponding posterior distributions are intractable and must be approximated. The most common approximation is based on Markov chain Monte…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-15 Yue Yang , Ryan Martin , Howard Bondell

Belief Propagation algorithms are instruments used broadly to solve graphical model optimization and statistical inference problems. In the general case of a loopy Graphical Model, Belief Propagation is a heuristic which is quite successful…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-09-15 Andrii Riazanov , Yury Maximov , Michael Chertkov

We consider the problem of estimating the joint distribution of $n$ independent random variables. Our approach is based on a family of candidate probabilities that we shall call a model and which is chosen to either contain the true…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-06-01 Yannick Baraud