Related papers: Gradient estimators for normalising flows

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is an efficient method of simulating smooth distributions and has motivated the widely used No-U-turn Sampler (NUTS) and software Stan. We build on NUTS and the technique of "unbiased sampling" to design HMC…

We propose an algorithm to estimate the path-gradient of both the reverse and forward Kullback-Leibler divergence for an arbitrary manifestly invertible normalizing flow. The resulting path-gradient estimators are straightforward to…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a simulation method commonly used for estimating expectations with respect to a given distribution. We consider estimating the covariance matrix of the asymptotic multivariate normal distribution of a…

Monte Carlo methods -- such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP) samplers -- provide asymptotically exact estimators of expectations under a target distribution. There is growing interest in…

In this work we define a unified mathematical framework to deepen our understanding of the role of stochastic gradient (SG) noise on the behavior of Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling (SGMCMC) algorithms. Our formulation unlocks the design…

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…

Exact approximations of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are a general emerging class of sampling algorithms. One of the main ideas behind exact approximations consists of replacing intractable quantities required to run standard…

This work introduces a novel multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) metamodeling approach for variance function estimation. Although devising an efficient experimental design for simulation metamodeling can be elusive, the MLMC-based approach…

Gradients play a pivotal role in neural networks explanation. The inherent high dimensionality and structural complexity of neural networks result in the original gradients containing a significant amount of noise. While several approaches…

This paper introduces an iterative algorithm for training nonparametric additive models that enjoys favorable memory storage and computational requirements. The algorithm can be viewed as the functional counterpart of stochastic gradient…

Single-site Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a variant of MCMC in which a single coordinate in the state space is modified in each step. Structured relational models are a good candidate for this style of inference. In the single-site…

Compressing large Neural Networks (NN) by quantizing the parameters, while maintaining the performance is highly desirable due to reduced memory and time complexity. In this work, we cast NN quantization as a discrete labelling problem, and…

Most of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms in existing probabilistic programming systems suboptimally use only model priors as proposal distributions. In this work, we describe an approach for…

We present a novel Bayesian inference tool that uses a neural network to parameterise efficient Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) proposals. The target distribution is first transformed into a diagonal, unit variance Gaussian by a series of…

Unnormalized probability distributions are central to modeling complex physical systems across various scientific domains. Traditional sampling methods, such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), often suffer from slow convergence, critical…

Markov chain (MC) algorithms are ubiquitous in machine learning and statistics and many other disciplines. Typically, these algorithms can be formulated as acceptance rejection methods. In this work we present a novel estimator applicable…

We consider the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm driven by a general stochastic sequence, including i.i.d noise and random walk on an arbitrary graph, among others; and analyze it in the asymptotic sense. Specifically, we employ…

Adaptive Monte Carlo methods are very efficient techniques designed to tune simulation estimators on-line. In this work, we present an alternative to stochastic approximation to tune the optimal change of measure in the context of…

Accurately detecting symbols transmitted over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless channels is crucial in realizing the benefits of MIMO techniques. However, optimal MIMO detection is associated with a complexity that grows…

Irreversible and rejection-free Monte Carlo methods, recently developed in Physics under the name Event-Chain and known in Statistics as Piecewise Deterministic Monte Carlo (PDMC), have proven to produce clear acceleration over standard…