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Bayesian inference provides a methodology for parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification in machine learning and deep learning methods. Variational inference and Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) sampling methods are used to…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-08-27 Rohitash Chandra , Joshua Simmons

The modified Method of Successive Approximations (MSA) is an iterative scheme for approximating solutions to stochastic control problems in continuous time based on Pontryagin Optimality Principle which, starting with an initial open loop…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-10 Deven Sethi , David Šiška

We present a survey of some of our recent results on Bayesian nonparametric inference for a multitude of stochastic processes. The common feature is that the prior distribution in the cases considered is on suitable sets of piecewise…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-06-04 Denis Belomestny , Frank van der Meulen , Peter Spreij

An efficient method for finding a better maximizer of computationally extensive probability distributions is proposed on the basis of a Bayesian optimization technique. A key idea of the proposed method is to use extreme values of…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2018-03-14 Ryo Tamura , Koji Hukushima

Optimization is widely used in statistics, and often efficiently delivers point estimates on useful spaces involving structural constraints or combinatorial structure. To quantify uncertainty, Gibbs posterior exponentiates the negative loss…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-07-23 Cheng Zeng , Eleni Dilma , Jason Xu , Leo L Duan

Due to their conjugate posteriors, Gaussian process priors are attractive for estimating the drift of stochastic differential equations with continuous time observations. However, their performance strongly depends on the choice of the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-02-04 Jan van Waaij

We consider the fractional posterior distribution that is obtained by updating a prior distribution via Bayes theorem with a fractional likelihood function, a usual likelihood function raised to a fractional power. First, we analyze the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-11-08 Anirban Bhattacharya , Debdeep Pati , Yun Yang

Variational approximation methods have proven to be useful for scaling Bayesian computations to large data sets and highly parametrized models. Applying variational methods involves solving an optimization problem, and recent research in…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-01-13 Victor M. -H. Ong , David J. Nott , Michael S. Smith

In general, the solution to a regression problem is the minimizer of a given loss criterion, and depends on the specified loss function. The nonparametric isotonic regression problem is special, in that optimal solutions can be found by…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-05-06 Alexander I. Jordan , Anja Mühlemann , Johanna F. Ziegel

Current methods for learning graphical models with latent variables and a fixed structure estimate optimal values for the model parameters. Whereas this approach usually produces overfitting and suboptimal generalization performance,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-01-30 Hagai Attias

Bayesian methods have proved powerful in many applications for the inference of model parameters from data. These methods are based on Bayes' theorem, which itself is deceptively simple. However, in practice the computations required are…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-07-10 Michael A. Chappell , Mark W. Woolrich

We study gradient flows of general functionals with linear growth with very weak assumptions. Classical results concerning characterisation of solutions require differentiability of the Lagrangian, as for the time-dependent minimal surface…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-03-19 Wojciech Górny , José M. Mazón

Bayesian methods are actively used for parameter identification and uncertainty quantification when solving nonlinear inverse problems with random noise. However, there are only few theoretical results justifying the Bayesian approach.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-02-04 Vladimir Spokoiny

There has been much recent interest in modifying Bayesian inference for misspecified models so that it is useful for specific purposes. One popular modified Bayesian inference method is "cutting feedback" which can be used when the model…

Bayesian inference allows to obtain useful information on the parameters of models, either in computational statistics or more recently in the context of Bayesian Neural Networks. The computational cost of usual Monte Carlo methods for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-03-03 Inass Sekkat , Gabriel Stoltz

The logarithmic divergence is an extension of the Bregman divergence motivated by optimal transport and a generalized convex duality, and satisfies many remarkable properties. Using the geometry induced by the logarithmic divergence, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-08 Amanjit Singh Kainth , Ting-Kam Leonard Wong , Frank Rudzicz

Modular Bayesian methods perform inference in models that are specified through a collection of coupled sub-models, known as modules. These modules often arise from modelling different data sources or from combining domain knowledge from…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-11-26 David T. Frazier , David J. Nott

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

In the usual Bayesian setting, a full probabilistic model is required to link the data and parameters, and the form of this model and the inference and prediction mechanisms are specified via de Finetti's representation. In general, such a…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-01-21 Yu Luo , David A. Stephens , Daniel J. Graham , Emma J. McCoy

The ultimate goal of optimization is to find the minimizer of a target function.However, typical criteria for active optimization often ignore the uncertainty about the minimizer. We propose a novel criterion for global optimization and an…

Methodology · Statistics 2012-02-13 Il Memming Park , Marcel Nassar , Mijung Park