Related papers: Variance Reduction for Metropolis-Hastings Sampler…
The Monte Carlo within Metropolis (MCwM) algorithm, interpreted as a perturbed Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, provides an approach for approximate sampling when the target distribution is intractable. Assuming the unperturbed Markov…
This paper is devoted to the multivariate estimation of a vector of Poisson means. A novel loss function that penalises bad estimates of each of the parameters and the sum (or equivalently the mean) of the parameters is introduced. Under…
This work is motivated by the analysis of ecological interaction networks. Poisson stochastic blockmodels are widely used in this field to decipher the structure that underlies a weighted network, while accounting for covariate effects.…
Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are often deemed too computationally intensive to be of any practical use for big data applications, and in particular for inference on datasets containing a large number $n$ of individual data points, also…
Gaussian latent variable models are a key class of Bayesian hierarchical models with applications in many fields. Performing Bayesian inference on such models can be challenging as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms struggle with the…
It is commonly admitted that non-reversible Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms usually yield more accurate MCMC estimators than their reversible counterparts. In this note, we show that in addition to their variance reduction…
In order to sample from a given target distribution (often of Gibbs type), the Monte Carlo Markov chain method consists in constructing an ergodic Markov process whose invariant measure is the target distribution. By sampling the Markov…
In this paper, we examine the computational complexity of sampling from a Bayesian posterior (or pseudo-posterior) using the Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithm (MALA). MALA first employs a discrete-time Langevin SDE to propose a new…
In this work, we develop a reduced-basis approach for the efficient computation of parametrized expected values, for a large number of parameter values, using the control variate method to reduce the variance. Two algorithms are proposed to…
Approximate inference in complex probabilistic models such as deep Gaussian processes requires the optimisation of doubly stochastic objective functions. These objectives incorporate randomness both from mini-batch subsampling of the data…
This short note is a self-contained and basic introduction to the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, this ubiquitous tool used for producing dependent simulations from an arbitrary distribution. The document illustrates the principles of the…
In this paper we introduce a new sampling algorithm which has the potential to be adopted as a universal replacement to the Metropolis--Hastings algorithm. It is related to the slice sampler, and motivated by an algorithm which is…
We describe a general strategy for sampling configurations from a given distribution, NOT based on the standard Metropolis (Markov chain) strategy. It uses the fact that nontrivial problems in statistical physics are high dimensional and…
This paper presents a new variable selection approach integrated with Gaussian process (GP) regression. We consider a sparse projection of input variables and a general stationary covariance model that depends on the Euclidean distance…
A classical approach for approximating expectations of functions w.r.t. partially known distributions is to compute the average of function values along a trajectory of a Metropolis-Hastings (MH) Markov chain. A key part in the MH algorithm…
We propose an algorithm for the efficient and robust sampling of the posterior probability distribution in Bayesian inference problems. The algorithm combines the local search capabilities of the Manifold Metropolis Adjusted Langevin…
The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling algorithm exploits Hamiltonian dynamics to construct efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), which has become increasingly popular in machine learning and statistics. Since HMC uses the gradient…
We describe a Bayesian approach to estimating luminosity functions. We derive the likelihood function and posterior probability distribution for the luminosity function, given the observed data, and we compare the Bayesian approach with…
Non-Gaussian distributions in cosmology are commonly evaluated with Monte Carlo Markov-chain methods, as the Fisher-matrix formalism is restricted to the Gaussian case. The Metropolis-Hastings algorithm will provide samples from the…
We consider the problem of learning a Gaussian variational approximation to the posterior distribution for a high-dimensional parameter, where we impose sparsity in the precision matrix to reflect appropriate conditional independence…