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The hierarchical prior used in Latent Gaussian models (LGMs) induces a posterior geometry prone to frustrate inference algorithms. Marginalizing out the latent Gaussian variable using an integrated Laplace approximation removes the…
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…
Many statistical models in cosmology can be simulated forwards but have intractable likelihood functions. Likelihood-free inference methods allow us to perform Bayesian inference from these models using only forward simulations, free from…
Maximum likelihood (ML) estimation using Newton's method in nonlinear state space models (SSMs) is a challenging problem due to the analytical intractability of the log-likelihood and its gradient and Hessian. We estimate the gradient and…
A Bayesian method of moments/instrumental variable (BMOM/IV) approach is developed and applied in the analysis of the important mean and multiple regression models. Given a single set of data, it is shown how to obtain posterior and…
Solving inverse problems using Bayesian methods can become prohibitively expensive when likelihood evaluations involve complex and large scale numerical models. A common approach to circumvent this issue is to approximate the forward model…
Mixture models are regularly used in density estimation applications, but the problem of estimating the mixing distribution remains a challenge. Nonparametric maximum likelihood produce estimates of the mixing distribution that are…
In recent years, methods of approximate parameter estimation have attracted considerable interest in complex problems where exact likelihoods are hard to obtain. In their most basic form, Bayesian methods such as Approximate Bayesian…
Bayesian synthetic likelihood (BSL) is now a well established method for performing approximate Bayesian parameter estimation for simulation-based models that do not possess a tractable likelihood function. BSL approximates an intractable…
This paper introduces a framework for speeding up Bayesian inference conducted in presence of large datasets. We design a Markov chain whose transition kernel uses an (unknown) fraction of (fixed size) of the available data that is randomly…
The focus of modern biomedical studies has gradually shifted to explanation and estimation of joint effects of high dimensional predictors on disease risks. Quantifying uncertainty in these estimates may provide valuable insight into…
In this paper, we study efficient approximate sampling for probability distributions known up to normalization constants. We specifically focus on a problem class arising in Bayesian inference for large-scale inverse problems in science and…
Inference of latent feature models in the Bayesian nonparametric setting is generally difficult, especially in high dimensional settings, because it usually requires proposing features from some prior distribution. In special cases, where…
Bayesian methods for learning Gaussian graphical models offer a principled framework for quantifying model uncertainty and incorporating prior knowledge. However, their scalability is constrained by the computational cost of jointly…
While Bayesian inference provides a principled framework for reasoning under uncertainty, its widespread adoption is limited by the intractability of exact posterior computation, necessitating the use of approximate inference. However,…
This work introduces a Bayesian methodology for fitting large discrete graphical models with spike-and-slab priors to encode sparsity. We consider a quasi-likelihood approach that enables node-wise parallel computation resulting in reduced…
Bayesian inference for hierarchical models can be very challenging. MCMC methods have difficulty scaling to large models with many observations and latent variables. While variational inference (VI) and reweighted wake-sleep (RWS) can be…
We define a novel class of additive models, called Extended Latent Gaussian Models, that allow for a wide range of response distributions and flexible relationships between the additive predictor and mean response. The new class covers a…
Latent Gaussian models (LGMs) are a popular class of Bayesian hierarchical models that include Gaussian processes, as well as certain spatial models and mixed-effect models. Efficient Bayesian inference of LGMs often requires marginalizing…
We consider distributed estimation of the inverse covariance matrix, also called the concentration or precision matrix, in Gaussian graphical models. Traditional centralized estimation often requires global inference of the covariance…