Related papers: An Annealed Sequential Monte Carlo Method for Baye…

Stochastic approximation Monte Carlo (SAMC) has recently been proposed by Liang, Liu and Carroll [J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 102 (2007) 305--320] as a general simulation and optimization algorithm. In this paper, we propose to improve its…

Due to the escalating growth of big data sets in recent years, new Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) parallel computing methods have been developed. These methods partition large data sets by observations into subsets. However, for…

We consider estimating the marginal likelihood in settings with independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) data. We propose estimating the predictive distributions in a sequential factorization of the marginal likelihood in such…

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a class of Bayesian inference algorithms that targets for problems with intractable or {unavailable} likelihood function. It uses synthetic data drawn from the simulation model to approximate the…

In performing a Bayesian analysis, two difficult problems often emerge. First, in estimating the parameters of some model for the data, the resulting posterior distribution may be multi-modal or exhibit pronounced (curving) degeneracies.…

Practitioners of Bayesian statistics have long depended on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to obtain samples from intractable posterior distributions. Unfortunately, MCMC algorithms are typically serial, and do not scale to the large…

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…

This book aims to provide a graduate-level introduction to advanced topics in Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, as applied broadly in the Bayesian computational context. Most, if not all of these topics (stochastic gradient MCMC,…

This study introduces a computationally efficient algorithm, delayed acceptance Markov chain Monte Carlo (DA-MCMC), designed to improve posterior simulation in quasi-Bayesian inference. Quasi-Bayesian methods, which do not require fully…

Phylogenetic comparative methods correct for shared evolutionary history among a set of non-independent organisms by modeling sample traits as arising from a diffusion process along on the branches of a possibly unknown history. To…

Synthetic likelihood is an attractive approach to likelihood-free inference when an approximately Gaussian summary statistic for the data, informative for inference about the parameters, is available. The synthetic likelihood method derives…

Bayesian inference for nonlinear diffusions, observed at discrete times, is a challenging task that has prompted the development of a number of algorithms, mainly within the computational statistics community. We propose a new direction,…

Leaving posterior sensitivity concerns aside, non-identifiability of the parameters does not raise a difficulty for Bayesian inference as far as the posterior is proper, but multi-modality or flat regions of the posterior induced by the…

Bayesian inference in state-space models is challenging due to high-dimensional state trajectories. A viable approach is particle Markov chain Monte Carlo, combining MCMC and sequential Monte Carlo to form "exact approximations" to…

In this paper we address the problem of Monte Carlo approximation of posterior probability distributions in stochastic kinetic models (SKMs). SKMs are multivariate Markov jump processes that model the interactions among species in…

The term ``sequential Monte Carlo methods'' or, equivalently, ``particle filters,'' refers to a general class of iterative algorithms that performs Monte Carlo approximations of a given sequence of distributions of interest (\pi_t). We…

Variational inference is a powerful paradigm for approximate Bayesian inference with a number of appealing properties, including support for model learning and data subsampling. By contrast MCMC methods like Hamiltonian Monte Carlo do not…

Decision tree learning is a popular approach for classification and regression in machine learning and statistics, and Bayesian formulations---which introduce a prior distribution over decision trees, and formulate learning as posterior…

A core problem in statistics and probabilistic machine learning is to compute probability distributions and expectations. This is the fundamental problem of Bayesian statistics and machine learning, which frames all inference as…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have not been broadly adopted in Bayesian neural networks (BNNs). This paper initially reviews the main challenges in sampling from the parameter posterior of a neural network via MCMC. Such…