Related papers: The Importance Markov Chain
We introduce a class of Adapted Increasingly Rarely Markov Chain Monte Carlo (AirMCMC) algorithms where the underlying Markov kernel is allowed to be changed based on the whole available chain output but only at specific time points…
It is shown that a seemingly harmless reordering of the steps in a block Gibbs sampler can actually invalidate the algorithm. In particular, the Markov chain that is simulated by the "out-of-order" block Gibbs sampler does not have the…
We formulate some simple conditions under which a Markov chain may be approximated by the solution to a differential equation, with quantifiable error probabilities. The role of a choice of coordinate functions for the Markov chain is…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) has transformed Bayesian model inference over the past three decades: mainly because of this, Bayesian inference is now a workhorse of applied scientists. Under general conditions, MCMC sampling converges…
As the number of samples and dimensionality of optimization problems related to statistics an machine learning explode, block coordinate descent algorithms have gained popularity since they reduce the original problem to several smaller…
We consider the problem of off-policy evaluation in Markov decision processes. Off-policy evaluation is the task of evaluating the expected return of one policy with data generated by a different, behavior policy. Importance sampling is a…
We develop a simple algorithm to parallelize generation processes of Markov chains. In this algorithm, multiple Markov chains are generated in parallel and jointed together to make a longer Markov chain. The joints between the constituent…
Computational procedures for the stationary probability distribution, the group inverse of the Markovian kernel and the mean first passage times of an irreducible Markov chain, are developed using perturbations. The derivation of these…
There is a growing interest in the literature for adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo methods based on sequences of random transition kernels $\{P_n\}$ where the kernel $P_n$ is allowed to have an invariant distribution $\pi_n$ not…
Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are central in computational statistics, and typically rely on detailed balance to ensure invariance with respect to a target distribution. Although straightforward to construct by Metropolization, this can…
The variance reduction established by importance sampling strongly depends on the choice of the importance sampling distribution. A good choice is often hard to achieve especially for high-dimensional integration problems. Nonparametric…
We present a new approach to the bootstrap for chains of infinite order taking values on a finite alphabet. It is based on a sequential Bootstrap Central Limit Theorem for the sequence of canonical Markov approximations of the chain of…
We prove a law of large numbers for empirical approximations of the spectrum of a kernel integral operator by the spectrum of random matrices based on a sample drawn from a Markov chain, which complements the results by V. Koltchinskii and…
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are popular when considering sampling from a high-dimensional random variable $\mathbf{x}$ with possibly unnormalised probability density $p$ and observed data $\mathbf{d}$. However, MCMC requires…
Bayesian methods and their implementations by means of sophisticated Monte Carlo techniques have become very popular in signal processing over the last years. Importance Sampling (IS) is a well-known Monte Carlo technique that approximates…
We present an algorithm that can efficiently compute a broad class of inferences for discrete-time imprecise Markov chains, a generalised type of Markov chains that allows one to take into account partially specified probabilities and other…
The limiting probability distribution is one of the key characteristics of a Markov chain since it shows its long-term behavior. In this paper, for a higher order Markov chain, we establish some properties related to its exact limiting…
The basic idea of importance sampling is to use independent samples from a proposal measure in order to approximate expectations with respect to a target measure. It is key to understand how many samples are required in order to guarantee…
We present a general framework for accelerating a large class of widely used Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. Our approach exploits fast, iterative approximations to the target density to speculatively evaluate many potential…
Selecting between competing statistical models is a challenging problem especially when the competing models are non-nested. In this paper we offer a simple solution by devising an algorithm which combines MCMC and importance sampling to…