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Related papers: Variational methods for simulation-based inference

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Sequential neural posterior estimation (SNPE) techniques have been recently proposed for dealing with simulation-based models with intractable likelihoods. Unlike approximate Bayesian computation, SNPE techniques learn the posterior from…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-01-17 Yifei Xiong , Xiliang Yang , Sanguo Zhang , Zhijian He

Stein variational inference (SVI) is a sample-based approximate Bayesian inference technique that generates a sample set by jointly optimizing the samples' locations to minimize an information-theoretic measure of discrepancy with the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-22 Liam Pavlovic , David M. Rosen

Bayesian inference without the likelihood evaluation, or likelihood-free inference, has been a key research topic in simulation studies for gaining quantitatively validated simulation models on real-world datasets. As the likelihood…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-11-07 Dongjun Kim , Kyungwoo Song , YoonYeong Kim , Yongjin Shin , Wanmo Kang , Il-Chul Moon , Weonyoung Joo

In variational inference, the benefits of Bayesian models rely on accurately capturing the true posterior distribution. We propose using neural samplers that specify implicit distributions, which are well-suited for approximating complex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-10 Anshuk Uppal , Kristoffer Stensbo-Smidt , Wouter Boomsma , Jes Frellsen

Few Bayesian methods for analyzing high-dimensional sparse survival data provide scalable variable selection, effect estimation and uncertainty quantification. Such methods often either sacrifice uncertainty quantification by computing…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-07-06 Michael Komodromos , Eric Aboagye , Marina Evangelou , Sarah Filippi , Kolyan Ray

Simulation based inference (SBI) methods enable the estimation of posterior distributions when the likelihood function is intractable, but where model simulation is feasible. Popular neural approaches to SBI are the neural posterior…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-04-23 Xiaoyu Wang , Ryan P. Kelly , David J. Warne , Christopher Drovandi

To adopt neural networks in safety critical domains, knowing whether we can trust their predictions is crucial. Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) provide uncertainty estimates by averaging predictions with respect to the posterior weight…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-17 Jannik Schmitt , Stefan Roth

Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) have recently regained a significant amount of attention in the deep learning community due to the development of scalable approximate Bayesian inference techniques. There are several advantages of using a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-05-02 Aliaksandr Hubin , Geir Storvik

Simulation-based inference techniques are indispensable for parameter estimation of mechanistic and simulable models with intractable likelihoods. While traditional statistical approaches like approximate Bayesian computation and Bayesian…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-03-08 Ryan P. Kelly , David J. Nott , David T. Frazier , David J. Warne , Chris Drovandi

Bayesian simulation-based inference (SBI) methods are used in statistical models where simulation is feasible but the likelihood is intractable. Standard SBI methods can perform poorly in cases of model misspecification, and there has been…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-04-15 Wang Yuyan , Michael Evans , David J. Nott

Bayesian inference methods such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) typically require repeated computations of the likelihood function, but in some scenarios this is infeasible and alternative methods are needed. Simulation-based inference…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-10 Linnea M Wolniewicz , Peter Sadowski , Claudio Corti

Simulation-based inference (SBI) enables Bayesian analysis when the likelihood is intractable but model simulations are available. Recent advances in statistics and machine learning, including Approximate Bayesian Computation and deep…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-09-15 Haoyu Jiang , Yuexi Wang , Yun Yang

We propose a new Bayesian Neural Net formulation that affords variational inference for which the evidence lower bound is analytically tractable subject to a tight approximation. We achieve this tractability by (i) decomposing ReLU…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-13 Manuel Haussmann , Fred A. Hamprecht , Melih Kandemir

Amortized simulation-based inference (SBI) methods train neural networks on simulated data to perform Bayesian inference. While this strategy avoids the need for tractable likelihoods, it often requires a large number of simulations and has…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-04 Manuel Gloeckler , Shoji Toyota , Kenji Fukumizu , Jakob H. Macke

A central challenge in many areas of science and engineering is to identify model parameters that are consistent with prior knowledge and empirical data. Bayesian inference offers a principled framework for this task, but can be…

Simulation-based inference (SBI) provides a powerful framework for inferring posterior distributions of stochastic simulators in a wide range of domains. In many settings, however, the posterior distribution is not the end goal itself --…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-19 Mila Gorecki , Jakob H. Macke , Michael Deistler

Research on Symbolic Probabilistic Inference (SPI) [2, 3] has provided an algorithm for resolving general queries in Bayesian networks. SPI applies the concept of dependency directed backward search to probabilistic inference, and is…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-03-26 Kuo-Chu Chang , Robert Fung

Reliable predictive uncertainty estimation plays an important role in enabling the deployment of neural networks to safety-critical settings. A popular approach for estimating the predictive uncertainty of neural networks is to define a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-12-29 Tim G. J. Rudner , Zonghao Chen , Yee Whye Teh , Yarin Gal

Variational Bayes (VB) is rapidly becoming a popular tool for Bayesian inference in statistical modeling. However, the existing VB algorithms are restricted to cases where the likelihood is tractable, which precludes the use of VB in many…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-08-05 Minh-Ngoc Tran , David J. Nott , Robert Kohn

Semi-implicit variational inference (SIVI) is introduced to expand the commonly used analytic variational distribution family, by mixing the variational parameter with a flexible distribution. This mixing distribution can assume any density…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-05-30 Mingzhang Yin , Mingyuan Zhou