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Related papers: Unbiased time-average estimators for Markov chains

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I show how any reversible Markov chain on a finite state space that is irreducible, and hence suitable for estimating expectations with respect to its invariant distribution, can be used to construct a non-reversible Markov chain on a…

Probability · Mathematics 2007-06-13 Radford M. Neal

We introduce a unified operator-theoretic framework for analyzing mixing times of finite-state ergodic Markov chains that applies to both reversible and non-reversible dynamics. The central object in our analysis is the projected transition…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-11-05 Muhammad Abdullah Naeem

We construct an unbiased estimator for function value evaluated at the solution of a partial differential equation with random coefficients. We show that the variance and expected computational cost of our estimator are finite and our…

Probability · Mathematics 2019-04-23 Jose Blanchet , Fengpei Li , Xiaoou Li

Given a smooth function $f$, we develop a general approach to turn Monte Carlo samples with expectation $m$ into an unbiased estimate of $f(m)$. Specifically, we develop estimators that are based on randomly truncating the Taylor series…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-04-01 Nicolas Chopin , Francesca R. Crucinio , Sumeetpal S. Singh

Interest is in evaluating, by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation, the expected value of a function with respect to a, possibly unnormalized, probability distribution. A general purpose variance reduction technique for the MCMC…

Computation · Statistics 2012-09-19 Antonietta Mira , Reza Solgi , Daniele Imparato

We study properties and parameter estimation of finite-state homogeneous continuous-time bivariate Markov chains. Only one of the two processes of the bivariate Markov chain is observable. The general form of the bivariate Markov chain…

Methodology · Statistics 2011-07-14 Brian L. Mark , Yariv Ephraim

For a reversible and ergodic Markov chain $\{X_n,n\geq0\}$ with invariant distribution $\pi$, we show that a valid confidence interval for $\pi(h)$ can be constructed whenever the asymptotic variance $\sigma^2_P(h)$ is finite and positive.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-08-14 Yves F. Atchadé

We study the so-called two-time-scale stochastic approximation, a simulation-based approach for finding the roots of two coupled nonlinear operators. Our focus is to characterize its finite-time performance in a Markov setting, which often…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-04-06 Thinh T. Doan

We study the limit behaviour of upper and lower bounds on expected time averages in imprecise Markov chains; a generalised type of Markov chain where the local dynamics, traditionally characterised by transition probabilities, are now…

Probability · Mathematics 2020-03-27 Natan T'Joens , Jasper De Bock

Continuous-time Markov chains are mathematical models that are used to describe the state-evolution of dynamical systems under stochastic uncertainty, and have found widespread applications in various fields. In order to make these models…

Probability · Mathematics 2017-06-22 Thomas Krak , Jasper De Bock , Arno Siebes

Time estimation is a fundamental task that underpins precision measurement, global navigation systems, financial markets, and the organisation of everyday life. Many biological processes also depend on time estimation by nanoscale clocks,…

We derive an asymptotic theory of nonparametric estimation for a time series regression model $Z_t=f(X_t)+W_t$, where \ensuremath\{X_t\} and \ensuremath\{Z_t\} are observed nonstationary processes and $\{W_t\}$ is an unobserved stationary…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2009-09-29 Hans Arnfinn Karlsen , Terje Myklebust , Dag Tjøstheim

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…

Computation · Statistics 2020-02-20 Daniel Rudolf , Björn Sprungk

We consider the parameter estimation of Markov chain when the unknown transition matrix belongs to an exponential family of transition matrices. Then, we show that the sample mean of the generator of the exponential family is an…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-09-28 Masahito Hayashi , Shun Watanabe

Motivated by reduction of computational complexity, this work develops sign-error adaptive filtering algorithms for estimating time-varying system parameters. Different from the previous work on sign-error algorithms, the parameters are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-11-17 Araz Hashemi , G. Yin , Le Yi Wang

We establish non-asymptotic error bounds for the classical Maximal Likelihood Estimation of the transition matrix of a given Markov chain. Meanwhile, in the reversible case, we propose a new reversibility-preserving online Symmetric…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-11-07 De Huang , Xiangyuan Li

Motivated by the widespread use of temporal-difference (TD-) and Q-learning algorithms in reinforcement learning, this paper studies a class of biased stochastic approximation (SA) procedures under a mild "ergodic-like" assumption on the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-02 Gang Wang , Bingcong Li , Georgios B. Giannakis

Markov chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) is a popular approach to sample from high dimensional distributions, and the asymptotic variance is a commonly used criterion to evaluate the performance. While most popular MCMC algorithms are reversible,…

Probability · Mathematics 2018-02-06 Chi-Hao Wu , Ting-Li Chen

We present a novel algorithm to solve a non-linear system of equations, whose solution can be interpreted as a tight lower bound on the vector of expected hitting times of a Markov chain whose transition probabilities are only partially…

Probability · Mathematics 2022-03-30 Thomas Krak

MCMC methods are used in Bayesian statistics not only to sample from posterior distributions but also to estimate expectations. Underlying functions are most often defined on a continuous state space and can be unbounded. We consider a…

Methodology · Statistics 2009-07-29 Krzysztof Latuszynski , Blazej Miasojedow , Wojciech Niemiro