Related papers: Stochastic Approximation EM for Exploratory Item F…
We consider approximate maximum likelihood parameter estimation in nonlinear state-space models. We discuss both direct optimization of the likelihood and expectation--maximization (EM). For EM, we also give closed-form expressions for the…
The analytic continuation of imaginary-time quantum Monte Carlo data to extract real-frequency spectra remains a key problem in connecting theory with experiment. Here we present a fast and efficient stochastic optimization method (FESOM)…
The autoregressive (AR) model is a widely used model to understand time series data. Traditionally, the innovation noise of the AR is modeled as Gaussian. However, many time series applications, for example, financial time series data, are…
The recently proposed statistical finite element (statFEM) approach synthesises measurement data with finite element models and allows for making predictions about the unknown true system response. We provide a probabilistic error analysis…
Factor Analysis (FA) is a technique of fundamental importance that is widely used in classical and modern multivariate statistics, psychometrics and econometrics. In this paper, we revisit the classical rank-constrained FA problem, which…
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…
This paper addresses the estimation of parameters of a Bayesian network from incomplete data. The task is usually tackled by running the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm several times in order to obtain a high log-likelihood…
The Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm is a key reference for inference in latent variable models; unfortunately, its computational cost is prohibitive in the large scale learning setting. In this paper, we propose an extension of the…
Complex biological processes are usually experimented along time among a collection of individuals. Longitudinal data are then available and the statistical challenge is to better understand the underlying biological mechanisms. The…
Symbolic data analysis (SDA) aggregates large individual-level datasets into a small number of distributional summaries, such as random rectangles or random histograms. The inference is carried out using these summaries in place of the…
We study a novel large dimensional approximate factor model with regime changes in the loadings driven by a latent first order Markov process. By exploiting the equivalent linear representation of the model, we first recover the latent…
Risk-based active learning is an approach to developing statistical classifiers for online decision-support. In this approach, data-label querying is guided according to the expected value of perfect information for incipient data points.…
The convergence of expectation-maximization (EM)-based algorithms typically requires continuity of the likelihood function with respect to all the unknown parameters (optimization variables). The requirement is not met when parameters…
Interval censoring occurs when event times are only known to fall between scheduled assessments, a common design in clinical trials, epidemiology, and reliability studies. Standard right-censoring methods, such as Kaplan-Meier and Cox…
This paper considers the problem of minimizing an expectation function over a closed convex set, coupled with a {\color{black} functional or expectation} constraint on either decision variables or problem parameters. We first present a new…
Gibbs sampling is a workhorse for Bayesian inference but has several limitations when used for parameter estimation, and is often much slower than non-sampling inference methods. SAME (State Augmentation for Marginal Estimation)…
Many applications require that we learn the parameters of a model from data. EM is a method used to learn the parameters of probabilistic models for which the data for some of the variables in the models is either missing or hidden. There…
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning have led to neural networks being used to generate lightning-speed answers to complex science questions, paintings in the style of Monet, or stories like those of Twain. Leveraging…
We explore a method of statistical estimation called Maximum Entropy on the Mean (MEM) which is based on an information-driven criterion that quantifies the compliance of a given point with a reference prior probability measure. At the core…
Many machine learning and optimization algorithms can be cast as instances of stochastic approximation (SA). The convergence rate of these algorithms is known to be slow, with the optimal mean squared error (MSE) of order $O(n^{-1})$. In…