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Model selection in the presence of intractable likelihoods remains a central challenge in Bayesian inference. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) provides a flexible likelihood-free framework, but its use for model choice is known to be…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-03 Clara Grazian

Likelihood-free inference refers to inference when a likelihood function cannot be explicitly evaluated, which is often the case for models based on simulators. Most of the literature is based on sample-based `Approximate Bayesian…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-11-22 Conor Durkan , George Papamakarios , Iain Murray

Many areas of science rely on simulators that implicitly encode intractable likelihood functions of complex systems. Classical statistical methods are poorly suited for these so-called likelihood-free inference (LFI) settings, especially…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-11-28 Niccolò Dalmasso , Luca Masserano , David Zhao , Rafael Izbicki , Ann B. Lee

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) methods are increasingly used for inference in situations in which the likelihood function is either computationally costly or intractable to evaluate. Extensions of the basic ABC rejection algorithm…

Computation · Statistics 2020-05-01 Umberto Simola , Jessica Cisewski-Kehe , Michael U. Gutmann , Jukka Corander

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is an approach for sampling from an approximate posterior distribution in the presence of a computationally intractable likelihood function. A common implementation is based on simulating model,…

Methodology · Statistics 2013-01-16 D. Prangle , M. G. B. Blum , G. Popovic , S. A. Sisson

We present mathematical and conceptual foundations for the task of robust amplitude estimation using engineered likelihood functions (ELFs), a framework introduced in Wang et al. [PRX Quantum 2, 010346 (2021)] that uses Bayesian inference…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-05-24 Dax Enshan Koh , Guoming Wang , Peter D. Johnson , Yudong Cao

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2018-04-11 Justin Alsing , Benjamin Wandelt , Stephen Feeney

Inferring parameter distributions of complex industrial systems from noisy time series data requires methods to deal with the uncertainty of the underlying data and the used simulation model. Bayesian inference is well suited for these…

Applications · Statistics 2021-06-18 David N. John , Livia Stohrer , Claudia Schillings , Michael Schick , Vincent Heuveline

Methods that bypass analytical evaluations of the likelihood function have become an indispensable tool for statistical inference in many fields of science. These so-called likelihood-free methods rely on accepting and rejecting simulations…

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…

Computation · Statistics 2015-07-17 Johanna Bertl , Gregory Ewing , Carolin Kosiol , Andreas Futschik

Many scientifically well-motivated statistical models in natural, engineering, and environmental sciences are specified through a generative process. However, in some cases, it may not be possible to write down the likelihood for these…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-11-17 Sanjay Chaudhuri , Subhroshekhar Ghosh , David J. Nott , Kim Cuc Pham

We describe an embarrassingly parallel, anytime Monte Carlo method for likelihood-free models. The algorithm starts with the view that the stochasticity of the pseudo-samples generated by the simulator can be controlled externally by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-12-03 Edward Meeds , Max Welling

Black-box variational inference (BBVI) now sees widespread use in machine learning and statistics as a fast yet flexible alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for approximate Bayesian inference. However, stochastic optimization…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-09-22 Manushi Welandawe , Michael Riis Andersen , Aki Vehtari , Jonathan H. Huggins

We propose a posterior for Bayesian Likelihood-Free Inference (LFI) based on generalized Bayesian inference. To define the posterior, we use Scoring Rules (SRs), which evaluate probabilistic models given an observation. In LFI, we can…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-09-24 Lorenzo Pacchiardi , Sherman Khoo , Ritabrata Dutta

For many stochastic models of interest in systems biology, such as those describing biochemical reaction networks, exact quantification of parameter uncertainty through statistical inference is intractable. Likelihood-free computational…

Molecular Networks · Quantitative Biology 2021-05-10 David J. Warne , Ruth E. Baker , Matthew J. Simpson

In the following article we consider approximate Bayesian parameter inference for observation driven time series models. Such statistical models appear in a wide variety of applications, including econometrics and applied mathematics. This…

Computation · Statistics 2013-04-01 Ajay Jasra , Nikolas Kantas , Elena Ehrlich

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) has become increasingly prominent as a method for conducting parameter inference in a range of challenging statistical problems, most notably those characterized by an intractable likelihood function.…

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a powerful and elegant framework for performing inference in simulation-based models. However, due to the difficulty in scaling likelihood estimates, ABC remains useful for relatively…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-03-09 Edward Meeds , Robert Leenders , Max Welling

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is commonly used for parameter estimation and model comparison for intractable simulator-based models whose likelihood function cannot be evaluated. In this paper we instead investigate the feasibility…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-09-13 Marko Järvenpää , Jukka Corander

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a class of Bayesian inference algorithms that targets for problems with intractable or {unavailable} likelihood function. It uses synthetic data drawn from the simulation model to approximate the…

Computation · Statistics 2024-12-24 Xuefei Cao , Shijia Wang , Yongdao Zhou