Related papers: Quantifying Gerrymandering With Simulated Annealin…
We propose a new Markov chain Monte Carlo method in which trial configurations are generated by evolving a state, sampled from a prior distribution, using a Markov transition matrix. We present two prototypical algorithms and derive their…
This paper presents a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to generate approximate posterior samples in retrospective multiple changepoint problems where the number of changes is not known in advance. The method uses conjugate models whereby the…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) is a class of algorithms that approximate high-dimensional expectations of a Markov chain. SMC algorithms typically include a resampling step. There are many possible ways to resample, but the relative…
We develop cloud-assisted remote sensing techniques for enabling distributed consensus estimation of unknown parameters in a given geographic area. We first propose a distributed sensor network virtualization algorithm that searches for,…
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…
We present several Monte Carlo strategies for simulating discrete-time Markov chains with continuous multi-dimensional state space; we focus on stratified techniques. We first analyze the variance of the calculation of the measure of a…
In this paper we build on previous work which uses inferences techniques, in particular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, to solve parameterized control problems. We propose a number of modifications in order to make this approach…
The paper develops a general framework for constrained clustering which is based on the close connection of geometric clustering and diagrams. Various new structural and algorithmic results are proved (and known results generalized and…
In this paper we present an extension of population-based Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to the trans-dimensional case. One of the main challenges in MCMC-based inference is that of simulating from high and trans-dimensional target…
This paper investigates methods for estimating the optimal stochastic control policy for a Markov Decision Process with unknown transition dynamics and an unknown reward function. This form of model-free reinforcement learning comprises…
Artificial Neural Networks were recently shown to be an efficient representation of highly-entangled many-body quantum states. In practical applications, neural-network states inherit numerical schemes used in Variational Monte Carlo, most…
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…
We consider the approximation of the performance of random walks in the quarter-plane. The approximation is in terms of a random walk with a product-form stationary distribution, which is obtained by perturbing the transition probabilities…
We explore the Declination, a new metric intended to detect partisan gerrymandering. We consider instances in which each district has equal turnout, the maximum turnout to minimum turnout is bounded, and turnout is unrestricted. For each of…
Probabilistic models are conceptually powerful tools for finding structure in data, but their practical effectiveness is often limited by our ability to perform inference in them. Exact inference is frequently intractable, so approximate…
Using Markov chain Monte Carlo to sample from posterior distributions was the key innovation which made Bayesian data analysis practical. Notoriously, however, MCMC is hard to tune, hard to diagnose, and hard to parallelize. This…
Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms are used to simulate from complex statistical distributions by way of a local exploration of these distributions. This local feature avoids heavy requests on understanding the nature of the target, but it…
An introduction to numerical large-deviation sampling is provided. First, direct biasing with a known distribution is explained. As simple example, the Bernoulli experiment is used throughout the text. Next, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…
Sampling from distributions play a crucial role in aiding practitioners with statistical inference. However, in numerous situations, obtaining exact samples from complex distributions is infeasible. Consequently, researchers often turn to…
The smoothing distribution is the conditional distribution of the diffusion process in the space of trajectories given noisy observations made continuously in time. It is generally difficult to sample from this distribution. We use the…