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We introduce Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms based on numerical approximations of piecewise-deterministic Markov processes obtained with the framework of splitting schemes. We present unadjusted as well as adjusted algorithms,…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-11-04 Andrea Bertazzi , Paul Dobson , Pierre Monmarché

An irreversible Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm with skew detailed balance conditions originally proposed by Turitsyn et al. is extended to general discrete systems on the basis of the Metropolis-Hastings scheme. To evaluate the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-04-21 Yuji Sakai , Koji Hukushima

Monte Carlo (MC) integration is the de facto method for approximating the predictive distribution of Bayesian neural networks (BNNs). But, even with many MC samples, Gaussian-based BNNs could still yield bad predictive performance due to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Agustinus Kristiadi , Runa Eschenhagen , Philipp Hennig

We present a general framework for accelerating a large class of widely used Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. Our approach exploits fast, iterative approximations to the target density to speculatively evaluate many potential…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-03-31 Elaine Angelino , Eddie Kohler , Amos Waterland , Margo Seltzer , Ryan P. Adams

Bayesian inference allows us to define a posterior distribution over the weights of a generic neural network (NN). Exact posteriors are usually intractable, in which case approximations can be employed. One such approximation - variational…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Andrew Millard , Joshua Murphy , Peter Green , Simon Maskell

We here consider the subset simulation method which approaches a failure event using a decreasing sequence of nested intermediate failure events. The method resembles importance sampling, which actively explores a probability space by…

Computation · Statistics 2020-03-16 Kenan Šehić , Mirza Karamehmedović

In this paper we study asymptotic properties of different data-augmentation-type Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms sampling from mixture models comprising discrete as well as continuous random variables. Of particular interest to us is…

Computation · Statistics 2014-04-04 Randal Douc , Florian Maire , Jimmy Olsson

We consider conditional tests for non-negative discrete exponential families. We develop two Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms which allow us to sample from the conditional space and to perform approximated tests. The first…

Computation · Statistics 2017-07-27 Roberto Fontana , Francesca Romana Crucinio

Variable selection is a key issue when analyzing high-dimensional data. The explosion of data with large sample sizes and dimensionality brings new challenges to this problem in both inference accuracy and computational complexity. To…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-11-30 Xu Chen , Shaan Qamar , Surya T. Tokdar

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…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-06-01 Florian Maire , Nial Friel , Pierre Alquier

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a powerful method for drawing samples from non-standard probability distributions and is utilized across many fields and disciplines. Methods such as Metropolis-Adjusted Langevin (MALA) and Hamiltonian…

Computation · Statistics 2024-10-28 Lee Devlin , Paul Horridge , Peter L. Green , Simon Maskell

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are one of the most popular classes of algorithms for sampling from a target probability distribution. A rising trend in recent years consists in analyzing the convergence of MCMC algorithms using…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-04-30 Federica Milinanni

We propose a new class of learning algorithms that combines variational approximation and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation. Naive algorithms that use the variational approximation as proposal distribution can perform poorly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-01-14 Nando de Freitas , Pedro Hojen-Sorensen , Michael I. Jordan , Stuart Russell

Delayed-acceptance Markov chain Monte Carlo (DA-MCMC) samples from a probability distribution via a two-stages version of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, by combining the target distribution with a "surrogate" (i.e. an approximate and…

We investigate the efficiency of a marginal likelihood estimator where the product of the marginal posterior distributions is used as an importance-sampling function. The approach is generally applicable to multi-block parameter vector…

Computation · Statistics 2014-07-08 K. Perrakis , I. Ntzoufras , E. G. Tsionas

As it has become common to use many computer cores in routine applications, finding good ways to parallelize popular algorithms has become increasingly important. In this paper, we present a parallelization scheme for Markov chain Monte…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-06-01 Guillaume W. Basse , Natesh S. Pillai , Aaron Smith

The rapid development of computing power and efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation algorithms have revolutionized Bayesian statistics, making it a highly practical inference method in applied work. However, MCMC algorithms…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-09-21 Matias Quiroz , Mattias Villani , Robert Kohn , Minh-Ngoc Tran , Khue-Dung Dang

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are a powerful tool for computation with complex probability distributions. However the performance of such methods is critically dependant on properly tuned parameters, most of which are difficult if…

Computation · Statistics 2021-10-27 James A. Brofos , Marylou Gabrié , Marcus A. Brubaker , Roy R. Lederman

Many problems in the physical sciences, machine learning, and statistical inference necessitate sampling from a high-dimensional, multi-modal probability distribution. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, the ubiquitous tool for this…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2022-05-12 Marylou Gabrié , Grant M. Rotskoff , Eric Vanden-Eijnden

In many situations it is important to be able to propose $N$ independent realizations of a given distribution law. We propose a strategy for making $N$ parallel Monte Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC) interact in order to get an approximation of…

Probability · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Fabien Campillo , Vivien Rossi