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Model predictive control (MPC) schemes have a proven track record for delivering aggressive and robust performance in many challenging control tasks, coping with nonlinear system dynamics, constraints, and observational noise. Despite their…

We propose a simple algorithm to train stochastic neural networks to draw samples from given target distributions for probabilistic inference. Our method is based on iteratively adjusting the neural network parameters so that the output…

This paper introduces Distributed Stein Variational Gradient Descent (DSVGD), a non-parametric generalized Bayesian inference framework for federated learning. DSVGD maintains a number of non-random and interacting particles at a central…

Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) is a highly efficient method to sample from an unnormalized probability distribution. However, the SVGD update relies on gradients of the log-density, which may not always be available. Existing…

Discretizations of Langevin diffusions provide a powerful method for sampling and Bayesian inference. However, such discretizations require evaluation of the gradient of the potential function. In several real-world scenarios, obtaining…

Stochastic Gradient Descent with a constant learning rate (constant SGD) simulates a Markov chain with a stationary distribution. With this perspective, we derive several new results. (1) We show that constant SGD can be used as an…

Sampling from a target distribution induced by training data is central to Bayesian learning, with Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) serving as a key tool for scalable posterior sampling and decentralized variants enabling…

We develop a novel class of MCMC algorithms based on a stochastized Nesterov scheme. With an appropriate addition of noise, the result is a time-inhomogeneous underdamped Langevin equation, which we prove emits a specified target…

Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) is a general-purpose optimization-based sampling algorithm that has recently exploded in popularity, but is limited by two issues: it is known to produce biased samples, and it can be slow to…

Distributional comparison is a fundamental problem in statistical data analysis with numerous applications in a variety of scientific and engineering fields. Numerous methods exist for distributional comparison but kernel Stein's method has…

Bayesian inference problems require sampling or approximating high-dimensional probability distributions. The focus of this paper is on the recently introduced Stein variational gradient descent methodology, a class of algorithms that rely…

An effective approach for sampling from unnormalized densities is based on the idea of gradually transporting samples from an easy prior to the complicated target distribution. Two popular methods are (1) Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), where…

Sampling from log-concave distributions is a well researched problem that has many applications in statistics and machine learning. We study the distributions of the form $p^{*}\propto\exp(-f(x))$, where…

This paper studies the optimization of the KL functional on the Wasserstein space of probability measures, and develops a sampling framework based on Wasserstein gradient descent (WGD). We identify two important subclasses of the…

Recently, Deng et al. (2026) proposed Generative Modeling via Drifting (GMD), a novel framework for generative tasks. This note presents an analysis of GMD through the lens of Wasserstein Gradient Flows (WGF), i.e., the path of steepest…

We provide finite-particle convergence rates for the Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm in the Kernelized Stein Discrepancy ($\mathsf{KSD}$) and Wasserstein-2 metrics. Our key insight is that the time derivative of the…

As an important Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (SGLD) algorithm has achieved great success in Bayesian learning and posterior sampling. However, SGLD typically suffers from slow convergence…

We propose Decentralized Proximal Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (DE-PSGLD), a decentralized Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for sampling from a log-concave probability distribution constrained to a convex domain.…

Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) is a popular variant of Stochastic Gradient Descent, where properly scaled isotropic Gaussian noise is added to an unbiased estimate of the gradient at each iteration. This modest change allows…

The need to calibrate increasingly complex statistical models requires a persistent effort for further advances on available, computationally intensive Monte Carlo methods. We study here an advanced version of familiar Markov Chain Monte…