English
Related papers

Related papers: Gradient Flows for Sampling: Mean-Field Models, Ga…

200 papers

We propose a variational form of the BDF2 method as an alternative to the commonly used minimizing movement scheme for the time-discrete approximation of gradient flows in abstract metric spaces. Assuming uniform semi-convexity --- but no…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2017-12-25 Daniel Matthes , Simon Plazotta

This paper deals with Gibbs samplers that include high dimensional conditional Gaussian distributions. It proposes an efficient algorithm that avoids the high dimensional Gaussian sampling and relies on a random excursion along a small set…

Computation · Statistics 2016-04-20 Olivier Féron , François Orieux , Jean-François Giovannelli

Deep Gaussian Processes learn probabilistic data representations for supervised learning by cascading multiple Gaussian Processes. While this model family promises flexible predictive distributions, exact inference is not tractable.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-23 Jakob Lindinger , David Reeb , Christoph Lippert , Barbara Rakitsch

We present a framework enabling variational data assimilation for gradient flows in general metric spaces, based on the minimizing movement (or Jordan-Kinderlehrer-Otto) approximation scheme. After discussing stability properties in the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2023-01-18 Jan-F. Pietschmann , Matthias Schlottbom

Density deconvolution is the task of estimating a probability density function given only noise-corrupted samples. We can fit a Gaussian mixture model to the underlying density by maximum likelihood if the noise is normally distributed, but…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-07-14 Tim Dockhorn , James A. Ritchie , Yaoliang Yu , Iain Murray

Gradient descent is one of the most widely used iterative algorithms in modern statistical learning. However, its precise algorithmic dynamics in high-dimensional settings remain only partially understood, which has limited its broader…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-11-19 Qiyang Han , Xiaocong Xu

This paper presents a groundbreaking approach to causal inference by integrating continuous normalizing flows (CNFs) with parametric submodels, enhancing their geometric sensitivity and improving upon traditional Targeted Maximum Likelihood…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-02 Kaiwen Hou

While deep learning has expanded the possibilities for highly expressive variational families, the practical benefits of these tools for variational inference (VI) are often limited by the minimization of the traditional Kullback-Leibler…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-10-18 Roman Soletskyi , Marylou Gabrié , Bruno Loureiro

We consider the maximum mean discrepancy ($\mathrm{MMD}$) GAN problem and propose a parametric kernelized gradient flow that mimics the min-max game in gradient regularized $\mathrm{MMD}$ GAN. We show that this flow provides a descent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-05 Youssef Mroueh , Truyen Nguyen

We introduce adaptive, tuning-free step size schedules for gradient-based sampling algorithms obtained as time-discretizations of Wasserstein gradient flows. The result is a suite of tuning-free sampling algorithms, including tuning-free…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-30 Louis Sharrock , Christopher Nemeth

We perform numerical analysis of a nonlinear gradient flow, which can be regarded as a parabolic minimal surface problem or a regularised total variation flow, using the gradient discretisation method (GDM). GDM is a unified convergence…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Jerome Droniou , Kim-Ngan Le , Huateng Zhu

Recent studies show that transformer-based architectures emulate gradient descent during a forward pass, contributing to in-context learning capabilities - an ability where the model adapts to new tasks based on a sequence of prompt…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-05-13 Karthik Duraisamy

In this work, we investigate links between the formulation of the flow of marginals of reversible diffusion processes as gradient flows in the space of probability measures and path wise large deviation principles for sequences of such…

Probability · Mathematics 2014-05-16 Max Fathi

Uncertainty quantification for full-waveform inversion provides a probabilistic characterization of the ill-conditioning of the problem, comprising the sensitivity of the solution with respect to the starting model and data noise. This…

Geophysics · Physics 2020-04-20 Gabrio Rizzuti , Ali Siahkoohi , Philipp A. Witte , Felix J. Herrmann

Consider a probability measure on a Hilbert space defined via its density with respect to a Gaussian. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that an appropriately defined Markov chain, which is reversible with respect to the measure in…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2014-04-21 Natesh S. Pillai , Andrew M. Stuart , Alexandre H. Thiery

Approximating a probability distribution using a set of particles is a fundamental problem in machine learning and statistics, with applications including clustering and quantization. Formally, we seek a weighted mixture of Dirac measures…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-24 Ayoub Belhadji , Daniel Sharp , Youssef Marzouk

This paper reviews the gradient sampling methodology for solving nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization problems. An intuitively straightforward gradient sampling algorithm is stated and its convergence properties are summarized. Throughout this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-01 James V. Burke , Frank E. Curtis , Adrian S. Lewis , Michael L. Overton , Lucas E. A. Simões

A new method called "variational sampling" is proposed to estimate integrals under probability distributions that can be evaluated up to a normalizing constant. The key idea is to fit the target distribution with an exponential family model…

Computation · Statistics 2013-10-15 Alexis Roche

The $L^2$ gradient flow of the Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional leads to the Allen Cahn equation that is widely used for modeling phase separation. Machine learning methods for solving the Allen-Cahn equation in its strong form suffer…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-27 Revanth Mattey , Susanta Ghosh

We propose a new sampling-based approach for approximate inference in filtering problems. Instead of approximating conditional distributions with a finite set of states, as done in particle filters, our approach approximates the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-03 Xuan Su , Wee Sun Lee , Zhen Zhang