Related papers: Optimal proposals for Approximate Bayesian Computa…
A Monte Carlo algorithm is said to be adaptive if it automatically calibrates its current proposal distribution using past simulations. The choice of the parametric family that defines the set of proposal distributions is critical for good…
We propose a novel use of a recent new computational tool for Bayesian inference, namely the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) methodology. ABC is a way to handle models for which the likelihood function may be intractable or even…
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is the dominant paradigm for posterior computation in Bayesian analysis. It is common to control computation time by making approximations to the Markov transition kernel. Comparatively little attention…
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) can be viewed as an analytic approximation of an intractable likelihood coupled with an elementary simulation step. Such a view, combined with a suitable instrumental prior distribution permits…
Composite likelihood provides approximate inference when the full likelihood is intractable and sub-likelihood functions of marginal events can be evaluated relatively easily. It has been successfully applied for many complex models.…
To infer the parameters of mechanistic models with intractable likelihoods, techniques such as approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) are increasingly being adopted. One of the main disadvantages of ABC in practical situations, however, is…
We consider the problem of optimizing a real-valued continuous function $f$ using a Bayesian approach, where the evaluations of $f$ are chosen sequentially by combining prior information about $f$, which is described by a random process…
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) enables statistical inference in simulator-based models whose likelihoods are difficult to calculate but easy to simulate from. ABC constructs a kernel-type approximation to the posterior distribution…
Model comparison for the purposes of selection, averaging and validation is a problem found throughout statistics. Within the Bayesian paradigm, these problems all require the calculation of the posterior probabilities of models within a…
With larger data at their disposal, scientists are emboldened to tackle complex questions that require sophisticated statistical models. It is not unusual for the latter to have likelihood functions that elude analytical formulations. Even…
"Approximate Bayesian Computation" (ABC) represents a powerful methodology for the analysis of complex stochastic systems for which the likelihood of the observed data under an arbitrary set of input parameters may be entirely…
Bayesian nonparametric mixture models offer a rich framework for model based clustering. We consider the situation where the kernel of the mixture is available only up to an intractable normalizing constant. In this case, most of the…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) samplers are powerful tools for Bayesian inference but suffer from high computational costs due to their reliance on large particle ensembles for accurate estimates. We introduce persistent sampling (PS), an…
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a statistical learning technique to calibrate and select models by comparing observed data to simulated data. This technique bypasses the use of the likelihood and requires only the ability to…
Many modern statistical applications involve inference for complicated stochastic models for which the likelihood function is difficult or even impossible to calculate, and hence conventional likelihood-based inferential echniques cannot be…
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a widely applicable and popular approach to estimating unknown parameters of mechanistic models. As ABC analyses are computationally expensive, parallelization on high-performance infrastructure is…
In this paper, we propose an approach for an application of Bayesian optimization using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) and concepts from the statistical physics of classical systems. Our method leverages the power of modern machine learning…
Performing exact posterior inference in complex generative models is often difficult or impossible due to an expensive to evaluate or intractable likelihood function. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is an inference framework that…
We introduce an approximate search algorithm for fast maximum a posteriori probability estimation in probabilistic programs, which we call Bayesian ascent Monte Carlo (BaMC). Probabilistic programs represent probabilistic models with…
Monte Carlo methods represent the "de facto" standard for approximating complicated integrals involving multidimensional target distributions. In order to generate random realizations from the target distribution, Monte Carlo techniques use…