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Bayesian inference allows machine learning models to express uncertainty. Current machine learning models use only a single learnable parameter combination when making predictions, and as a result are highly overconfident when their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-23 Andrew Wood , Moshik Hershcovitch , Daniel Waddington , Sarel Cohen , Peter Chin

Several issues in machine learning and inverse problems require to generate discrete data, as if sampled from a model probability distribution. A common way to do so relies on the construction of a uniform probability distribution over a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-06-16 Quentin Merigot , Filippo Santambrogio , Clément Sarrazin

We present new algorithms to compute the mean of a set of empirical probability measures under the optimal transport metric. This mean, known as the Wasserstein barycenter, is the measure that minimizes the sum of its Wasserstein distances…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-06-18 Marco Cuturi , Arnaud Doucet

Laplace approximation is a very useful tool in Bayesian inference and it claims a nearly Gaussian behavior of the posterior. \cite{SpLaplace2022} established some rather accurate finite sample results about the quality of Laplace…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-05-17 Vladimir Spokoiny

We consider the efficient use of an approximation within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), with subsequent importance sampling (IS) correction of the Markov chain inexact output, leading to asymptotically exact inference. We detail…

Computation · Statistics 2019-04-15 Jordan Franks

Approximate Bayesian computation performs approximate inference for models where likelihood computations are expensive or impossible. Instead simulations from the model are performed for various parameter values and accepted if they are…

Computation · Statistics 2015-12-16 Dennis Prangle

We propose a simple approach that provides accurate uncertainty quantification for Bayesian inference in misspecified or approximate models, and for generalized (Gibbs) posteriors. While existing solutions in this context are based on…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-11 David T. Frazier , Christopher Drovandi , Robert Kohn

Let $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be a random sample from an unknown probability distribution $P$ on the sample space ${\cal X}$, and let $\theta=\theta(P)$ be a parameter of interest. The present paper proposes a nonparametric `Bayesian bootstrap'…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-05-13 Nils Lid Hjort

Generalization error bounds are essential to understanding machine learning algorithms. This paper presents novel expected generalization error upper bounds based on the average joint distribution between the output hypothesis and each…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2022-02-25 Gholamali Aminian , Yuheng Bu , Gregory Wornell , Miguel Rodrigues

Wasserstein barycenters provide a geometric notion of the weighted average of probability measures based on optimal transport. In this paper, we present a scalable algorithm to compute Wasserstein-2 barycenters given sample access to the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-02 Alexander Korotin , Lingxiao Li , Justin Solomon , Evgeny Burnaev

Bayesian methods provide an elegant framework for estimating parameter posteriors and quantification of uncertainty associated with probabilistic models. However, they often suffer from slow inference times. To address this challenge,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-10 Piyush Tiwary , Kumar Shubham , Vivek V. Kashyap , Prathosh A. P

We conduct non-asymptotic analysis on the mean-field variational inference for approximating posterior distributions in complex Bayesian models that may involve latent variables. We show that the mean-field approximation to the posterior…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-11-06 Wei Han , Yun Yang

Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are often deemed too computationally intensive to be of any practical use for big data applications, and in particular for inference on datasets containing a large number $n$ of individual data points, also…

Methodology · Statistics 2015-05-13 Rémi Bardenet , Arnaud Doucet , Chris Holmes

Generalised Bayesian inference updates prior beliefs using a loss function, rather than a likelihood, and can therefore be used to confer robustness against possible mis-specification of the likelihood. Here we consider generalised Bayesian…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-01-12 Takuo Matsubara , Jeremias Knoblauch , François-Xavier Briol , Chris. J. Oates

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…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2007-06-13 Nicolas Chopin

Bayesian computational algorithms tend to scale poorly as data size increases. This has motivated divide-and-conquer-based approaches for scalable inference. These divide the data into subsets, perform inference for each subset in parallel,…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-22 Rihui Ou , Lachlan Astfalck , Deborshee Sen , David Dunson

Gaussian latent variable models are a key class of Bayesian hierarchical models with applications in many fields. Performing Bayesian inference on such models can be challenging as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms struggle with the…

Computation · Statistics 2020-11-09 Charles C. Margossian , Aki Vehtari , Daniel Simpson , Raj Agrawal

Hierarchical parametric models consisting of observable and latent variables are widely used for unsupervised learning tasks. For example, a mixture model is a representative hierarchical model for clustering. From the statistical point of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-01-24 Keisuke Yamazaki

Estimated uncertainty by approximate posteriors in Bayesian neural networks are prone to miscalibration, which leads to overconfident predictions in critical tasks that have a clear asymmetric cost or significant losses. Here, we extend the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-17 Biraja Ghoshal , Allan Tucker

We consider a method for approximate inference in hidden Markov models (HMMs). The method circumvents the need to evaluate conditional densities of observations given the hidden states. It may be considered an instance of Approximate…

Computation · Statistics 2012-06-25 James S. Martin , Ajay Jasra , Sumeetpal S. Singh , Nick Whiteley , Emma McCoy