English
Related papers

Related papers: The Forward-Backward Envelope for Sampling with th…

200 papers

We introduce a framework for quasi-Newton forward--backward splitting algorithms (proximal quasi-Newton methods) with a metric induced by diagonal $\pm$ rank-$r$ symmetric positive definite matrices. This special type of metric allows for a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-11-27 Stephen Becker , Jalal Fadili , Peter Ochs

Various differentially private algorithms instantiate the exponential mechanism, and require sampling from the distribution $\exp(-f)$ for a suitable function $f$. When the domain of the distribution is high-dimensional, this sampling can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-18 Arun Ganesh , Kunal Talwar

The forward-backward splitting method (FBS) for minimizing a nonsmooth composite function can be interpreted as a (variable-metric) gradient method over a continuously differentiable function which we call forward-backward envelope (FBE).…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-11 Lorenzo Stella , Andreas Themelis , Panagiotis Patrinos

This work introduces a new approximate proximal sampler that operates solely with zeroth-order information of the potential function. Prior theoretical analyses have revealed that proximal sampling corresponds to alternating forward and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-23 Hirohane Takagi , Atsushi Nitanda

We propose a localized consensus-based method for sampling from non-Gaussian distributions. This method arises from an alternative derivation of consensus-based sampling (CBS). Starting from ensemble-preconditioned Langevin dynamics, we…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-11-14 Arne Bouillon , Alexander Bodard , Panagiotis Patrinos , Dirk Nuyens , Giovanni Samaey

While gradient-based discrete samplers are effective in sampling from complex distributions, they are susceptible to getting trapped in local minima, particularly in high-dimensional, multimodal discrete distributions, owing to the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-21 Luxu Liang , Yuhang Jia , Feng Zhou

We proposed a new technique to accelerate sampling methods for solving difficult optimization problems. Our method investigates the intrinsic connection between posterior distribution sampling and optimization with Langevin dynamics, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-31 Junlong Lyu , Zhitang Chen , Wenlong Lyu , Jianye Hao

We propose smoothed primal-dual algorithms for solving stochastic and smooth nonconvex optimization problems with linear inequality constraints. Our algorithms are single-loop and only require a single stochastic gradient based on one…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-11 Ruichuan Huang , Jiawei Zhang , Ahmet Alacaoglu

We propose discrete Langevin proposal (DLP), a simple and scalable gradient-based proposal for sampling complex high-dimensional discrete distributions. In contrast to Gibbs sampling-based methods, DLP is able to update all coordinates in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-22 Ruqi Zhang , Xingchao Liu , Qiang Liu

The recent statistical finite element method (statFEM) provides a coherent statistical framework to synthesise finite element models with observed data. Through embedding uncertainty inside of the governing equations, finite element…

Computation · Statistics 2021-12-30 Ömer Deniz Akyildiz , Connor Duffin , Sotirios Sabanis , Mark Girolami

In this paper we propose a new approach for sampling from probability measures in, possibly, high dimensional spaces. By perturbing the standard overdamped Langevin dynamics by a suitable Stratonovich perturbation that preserves the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2019-04-23 Assyr Abdulle , Grigorios A. Pavliotis , Gilles Vilmart

Sampling from various kinds of distributions is an issue of paramount importance in statistics since it is often the key ingredient for constructing estimators, test procedures or confidence intervals. In many situations, the exact sampling…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-11-05 Avetik Karagulyan

We study the slightly compressible Darcy-Forchheimer equations modeling gas flow in porous media, particularly in applications related to combustion processes. The equations are discretized in time using the backward Euler method and in…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-04-16 Laura Portero , Andrés Arrarás , Francisco J. Gaspar , Florin A. Radu

We introduce a novel framework for efficient sampling from complex, unnormalised target distributions by exploiting multiscale dynamics. Traditional score-based sampling methods either rely on learned approximations of the score function or…

Computation · Statistics 2025-11-04 Paula Cordero-Encinar , Andrew B. Duncan , Sebastian Reich , O. Deniz Akyildiz

We study a sampling problem whose target distribution is $\pi \propto \exp(-f-r)$ where the data fidelity term $f$ is Lipschitz smooth while the regularizer term $r=r_1-r_2$ is a non-smooth difference-of-convex (DC) function, i.e.,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-21 Hoang Phuc Hau Luu , Zhongjian Wang

We study sampling as optimization in the space of measures. We focus on gradient flow-based optimization with the Langevin dynamics as a case study. We investigate the source of the bias of the unadjusted Langevin algorithm (ULA) in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-06-08 Andre Wibisono

We study sampling problems associated with potentials that lack smoothness. The potentials can be either convex or non-convex. Departing from the standard smooth setting, the potentials are only assumed to be weakly smooth or non-smooth, or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-04 Jiaming Liang , Yongxin Chen

Bayesian methods of sampling from a posterior distribution are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to precisely display the uncertainty of a model fit. Classical methods based on iterative random sampling and posterior…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-11-04 Jacopo Guidolin , Vyacheslav Kungurtsev , Ondřej Kuželka

Sampling from flat modes in discrete spaces is a crucial yet underexplored problem. Flat modes represent robust solutions and have broad applications in combinatorial optimization and discrete generative modeling. However, existing sampling…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-19 Pinaki Mohanty , Riddhiman Bhattacharya , Ruqi Zhang

The discretization of the density matrix is proposed as a nonlinear positive map for systems with continuous variables. This procedure is used to calculate the entanglement between two modes through different criteria, such as Tsallis…