Related papers: Sequential Monte Carlo for Sampling Balanced and C…
Simulation methods have become important tools for quantifying partisan and racial bias in redistricting plans. We generalize the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm of McCartan and Imai (2023), one of the commonly used approaches.…
Evaluating the degree of partisan districting (Gerrymandering) in a statistical framework typically requires an ensemble of districting plans which are drawn from a prescribed probability distribution that adheres to a realistic and…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are a class of Monte Carlo methods that are used to obtain random samples of a high dimensional random variable in a sequential fashion. Many problems encountered in applications often involve different…
We propose a novel class of Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms, appropriate for inference in probabilistic graphical models. This class of algorithms adopts a divide-and-conquer approach based upon an auxiliary tree-structured…
In many problems, complex non-Gaussian and/or nonlinear models are required to accurately describe a physical system of interest. In such cases, Monte Carlo algorithms are remarkably flexible and extremely powerful approaches to solve such…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are a class of techniques to sample approximately from any sequence of probability distributions using a combination of importance sampling and resampling steps. This paper is concerned with the…
In the design and analysis of political redistricting maps, it is often useful to be able to sample from the space of all partitions of the graph of census blocks into connected subgraphs of equal population. There are influential Markov…
We propose a new framework for how to use sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms for inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGM). Via a sequential decomposition of the PGM we find a sequence of auxiliary distributions defined on a…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) is a class of algorithms that approximate high-dimensional expectations of a Markov chain. SMC algorithms typically include a resampling step. There are many possible ways to resample, but the relative…
We investigate the prevalence of sample repetition in a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method recently introduced for political redistricting.
We develop a Multi-Scale Merge-Split Markov chain on redistricting plans. The chain is designed to be usable as the proposal in a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Sampling the space of plans amounts to dividing a graph into a…
Random samples of quantum states with specific properties are useful for various applications, such as Monte Carlo integration over the state space. In the high-dimensional situations that one encounters already for a few qubits, the…
We propose a sequential Markov chain Monte Carlo (SMCMC) algorithm to sample from a sequence of probability distributions, corresponding to posterior distributions at different times in on-line applications. SMCMC proceeds as in usual MCMC…
When auditing a redistricting plan, a persuasive method is to compare the plan with an ensemble of neutrally drawn redistricting plans. Ensembles are generated via algorithms that sample distributions on balanced graph partitions. To audit…
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a well-established family of algorithms primarily used in Bayesian statistics to sample from a target distribution when direct sampling is challenging. Existing work on Bayesian decision trees uses MCMC.…
Recently there have been exciting developments in Monte Carlo methods, with the development of new MCMC and sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms which are based on continuous-time, rather than discrete-time, Markov processes. This has…
In online clustering problems, there is often a large amount of uncertainty over possible cluster assignments that cannot be resolved until more data are observed. This difficulty is compounded when clusters follow complex distributions, as…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms were originally designed for estimating intractable conditional expectations within state-space models, but are now routinely used to generate approximate samples in the context of general-purpose…
Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), also known as particle filters, has been widely accepted as a powerful computational tool for making inference with dynamical systems. A key step in SMC is resampling, which plays the role of steering the…