Related papers: Markov Chain Monte Carlo for generating ranked tex…
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…
We present an efficient algorithm for the inference of stochastic block models in large networks. The algorithm can be used as an optimized Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, with a fast mixing time and a much reduced susceptibility to…
We compare different selection criteria to choose the number of latent states of a multivariate latent Markov model for longitudinal data. This model is based on an underlying Markov chain to represent the evolution of a latent…
From basic considerations of the Lie group that preserves a target probability measure, we derive the Barker, Metropolis, and ensemble Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, as well as variants of waste-recycling Metropolis-Hastings…
Stochastic epidemic models describe the dynamics of an epidemic as a disease spreads through a population. Typically, only a fraction of cases are observed at a set of discrete times. The absence of complete information about the time…
The past decade has seen a revived interest in the unavoidable or intrinsic noise in biochemical and genetic networks arising from the finite copy number of the participating species. That is, rather than modeling regulatory networks in…
We propose a Monte Carlo algorithm to sample from high dimensional probability distributions that combines Markov chain Monte Carlo and importance sampling. We provide a careful theoretical analysis, including guarantees on robustness to…
We present an adaptive method for the automatic scaling of Random-Walk Metropolis-Hastings algorithms, which quickly and robustly identifies the scaling factor that yields a specified overall sampler acceptance probability. Our method…
This paper develops the use of Dirichlet forms to deliver proofs of optimal scaling results for Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms (specifically, Metropolis-Hastings random walk samplers) under regularity conditions which are substantially…
The missing data issue often complicates the task of estimating generalized linear models (GLMs). We describe why the pseudo-marginal Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, used in this setting, is an effective strategy for parameter estimation.…
Constrained decoding enables Language Models (LMs) to produce samples that provably satisfy hard constraints. However, existing constrained-decoding approaches often distort the underlying model distribution, a limitation that is especially…
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…
The formal verification of large probabilistic models is important and challenging. Exploiting the concurrency that is often present is one way to address this problem. Here we study a restricted class of asynchronous distributed…
Gradient-based Monte Carlo sampling algorithms, like Langevin dynamics and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, are important methods for Bayesian inference. In large-scale settings, full-gradients are not affordable and thus stochastic gradients…
Accurate and efficient estimation of rare events probabilities is of significant importance, since often the occurrences of such events have widespread impacts. The focus in this work is on precisely quantifying these probabilities, often…
The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm is a powerful Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method that uses Hamiltonian dynamics to generate samples from a target distribution. To fully exploit its potential, we must understand how…
In this work, we propose a first-order sampling method called the Metropolis-adjusted Preconditioned Langevin Algorithm for approximate sampling from a target distribution whose support is a proper convex subset of $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. Our…
Descriptive grammars are highly valuable, but writing them is time-consuming and difficult. Furthermore, while linguists typically use corpora to create them, grammar descriptions often lack quantitative data. As for formal grammars, they…
Motivated by applications of distributed linear estimation, distributed control and distributed optimization, we consider the question of designing linear iterative algorithms for computing the average of numbers in a network. Specifically,…
Today's probabilistic language generators fall short when it comes to producing coherent and fluent text despite the fact that the underlying models perform well under standard metrics, e.g., perplexity. This discrepancy has puzzled the…