Related papers: A Zero-One Law for Virtual Markov Chains

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…

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), Laplace approximation (LA) and variational inference (VI) methods are popular approaches to Bayesian inference, each with trade-offs between computational cost and accuracy. However, a theoretical…

We extend the Markov chain tree theorem to general commutative semirings, and we generalize the state reduction algorithm to commutative semifields. This leads to a new universal algorithm, whose prototype is the state reduction algorithm…

Computing the stationary distributions of a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) involves solving a set of linear equations. In most cases of interest, the number of equations is infinite or too large, and the equations cannot be solved…

Nonlinear Markov Chains (nMC) are regarded as the original (linear) Markov Chains with nonlinear small perturbations. It fits real-world data better, but its associated properties are difficult to describe. A new approach is proposed to…

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…

Variational quantum algorithms are poised to have significant impact on high-dimensional optimization, with applications in classical combinatorics, quantum chemistry, and condensed matter. Nevertheless, the optimization landscape of these…

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach that exhibits favourable exploration properties in high-dimensional models such as neural networks. Unfortunately, HMC has limited use in large-data regimes and…

The development of algorithms for unsupervised pattern recognition by nonlinear clustering is a notable problem in data science. Markov clustering (MCL) is a renowned algorithm that simulates stochastic flows on a network of sample…

This paper addresses the problem of finding a minimum-cost $m$-state Markov chain $(S_0,\ldots,S_{m-1})$ in a large set of chains. The chains studied have a reward associated with each state. The cost of a chain is its "gain", i.e., its…

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…

We consider a vector of $N$ independent binary variables, each with a different probability of success. The distribution of the vector conditional on its sum is known as the conditional Bernoulli distribution. Assuming that $N$ goes to…

We consider the problem of estimating the measure of subsets in very large networks. A prime tool for this purpose is the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. This algorithm, while extremely useful in many cases, still often suffers…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are generally regarded as the gold standard technique for Bayesian inference. They are theoretically well-understood and conceptually simple to apply in practice. The drawback of MCMC is that in…

Leaving posterior sensitivity concerns aside, non-identifiability of the parameters does not raise a difficulty for Bayesian inference as far as the posterior is proper, but multi-modality or flat regions of the posterior induced by the…

We propose a Markov chain simulation method to generate simple connected random graphs with a specified degree sequence and level of clustering. The networks generated by our algorithm are random in all other respects and can thus serve as…

Markov chains are a class of probabilistic models that have achieved widespread application in the quantitative sciences. This is in part due to their versatility, but is compounded by the ease with which they can be probed analytically.…

Markov chains are simple yet powerful mathematical structures to model temporally dependent processes. They generally assume stationary data, i.e., fixed transition probabilities between observations/states. However, live, real-world…

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…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms provide a very general recipe for estimating properties of complicated distributions. While their use has become commonplace and there is a large literature on MCMC theory and practice, MCMC users…