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Many probabilistic models of interest in scientific computing and machine learning have expensive, black-box likelihoods that prevent the application of standard techniques for Bayesian inference, such as MCMC, which would require access to…
Deep neural networks have achieved impressive results on a wide variety of tasks. However, quantifying uncertainty in the network's output is a challenging task. Bayesian models offer a mathematical framework to reason about model…
While Bayesian methods are extremely popular in statistics and machine learning, their application to massive datasets is often challenging, when possible at all. Indeed, the classical MCMC algorithms are prohibitively slow when both the…
Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) have recently regained a significant amount of attention in the deep learning community due to the development of scalable approximate Bayesian inference techniques. There are several advantages of using a…
Many recent advances in large scale probabilistic inference rely on variational methods. The success of variational approaches depends on (i) formulating a flexible parametric family of distributions, and (ii) optimizing the parameters to…
Probability density function estimation with weighted samples is the main foundation of all adaptive importance sampling algorithms. Classically, a target distribution is approximated either by a non-parametric model or within a parametric…
While generalized linear mixed models are a fundamental tool in applied statistics, many specifications, such as those involving categorical factors with many levels or interaction terms, can be computationally challenging to estimate due…
Inference methods are often formulated as variational approximations: these approximations allow easy evaluation of statistics by marginalization or linear response, but these estimates can be inconsistent. We show that by introducing…
We introduce overdispersed black-box variational inference, a method to reduce the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator of the gradient in black-box variational inference. Instead of taking samples from the variational distribution, we use…
Recent advances in stochastic gradient variational inference have made it possible to perform variational Bayesian inference with posterior approximations containing auxiliary random variables. This enables us to explore a new synthesis of…
For predictive modeling relying on Bayesian inversion, fully independent, or ``mean-field'', Gaussian distributions are often used as approximate probability density functions in variational inference since the number of variational…
Deep feedforward neural networks (DFNNs) are a powerful tool for functional approximation. We describe flexible versions of generalized linear and generalized linear mixed models incorporating basis functions formed by a DFNN. The…
Variational inference is a powerful tool for approximate inference, and it has been recently applied for representation learning with deep generative models. We develop the variational Gaussian process (VGP), a Bayesian nonparametric…
We present a new algorithm for approximate inference in probabilistic programs, based on a stochastic gradient for variational programs. This method is efficient without restrictions on the probabilistic program; it is particularly…
Variational Inference makes a trade-off between the capacity of the variational family and the tractability of finding an approximate posterior distribution. Instead, Boosting Variational Inference allows practitioners to obtain…
Stochastic variational inference algorithms are derived for fitting various heteroskedastic time series models. We examine Gaussian, t, and skew-t response GARCH models and fit these using Gaussian variational approximating densities. We…
Non-linear hierarchical models are commonly used in many disciplines. However, inference in the presence of non-nested effects and on large datasets is challenging and computationally burdensome. This paper provides two contributions to…
We propose a general algorithm for approximating nonstandard Bayesian posterior distributions. The algorithm minimizes the Kullback-Leibler divergence of an approximating distribution to the intractable posterior distribution. Our method…
We introduce a novel Bayesian approach for variable selection using Gaussian process regression, which is crucial for enhancing interpretability and model regularization. Our method employs nearest neighbor Gaussian processes, serving as…
A common method for assessing validity of Bayesian sampling or approximate inference methods makes use of simulated data replicates for parameters drawn from the prior. Under continuity assumptions, quantiles of functions of the simulated…