Related papers: Kernel Stein Discrepancy on Lie Groups: Theory and…
We study the Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm, which optimises a set of particles to approximate a target probability distribution $\pi\propto e^{-V}$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$. In the population limit, SVGD performs gradient…
Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) is a non-parametric inference algorithm that evolves a set of particles to fit a given distribution of interest. We analyze the non-asymptotic properties of SVGD, showing that there exists a set of…
Stein discrepancies (SDs) monitor convergence and non-convergence in approximate inference when exact integration and sampling are intractable. However, the computation of a Stein discrepancy can be prohibitive if the Stein operator - often…
Kernelized Stein discrepancy (KSD) is a score-based discrepancy widely used in goodness-of-fit tests. It can be applied even when the target distribution has an unknown normalising factor, such as in Bayesian analysis. We show theoretically…
We introduce a new family of particle evolution samplers suitable for constrained domains and non-Euclidean geometries. Stein Variational Mirror Descent and Mirrored Stein Variational Gradient Descent minimize the Kullback-Leibler (KL)…
Existing example-based prediction explanation methods often bridge test and training data points through the model's parameters or latent representations. While these methods offer clues to the causes of model predictions, they often…
Measure transport underpins several recent algorithms for posterior approximation in the Bayesian context, wherein a transport map is sought to minimise the Kullback--Leibler divergence (KLD) from the posterior to the approximation. The KLD…
A fundamental challenge in Bayesian inference is efficient representation of a target distribution. Many non-parametric approaches do so by sampling a large number of points using variants of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). We propose an…
Several emerging post-Bayesian methods target a probability distribution for which an entropy-regularised variational objective is minimised. This increased flexibility introduces a computational challenge, as one loses access to an…
Kernel Stein discrepancies (KSDs) are widely used for goodness-of-fit testing, but standard KSDs can be insensitive to higher-order dependence features such as tail dependence. We introduce the Copula-Stein Discrepancy (CSD), which defines…
We propose a kernel-based nonparametric test of relative goodness of fit, where the goal is to compare two models, both of which may have unobserved latent variables, such that the marginal distribution of the observed variables is…
We propose a goodness-of-fit measure for probability densities modeling observations with varying dimensionality, such as text documents of differing lengths or variable-length sequences. The proposed measure is an instance of the kernel…
Optimal transport has been very successful for various machine learning tasks; however, it is known to suffer from the curse of dimensionality. Hence, dimensionality reduction is desirable when applied to high-dimensional data with…
We propose a general purpose variational inference algorithm that forms a natural counterpart of gradient descent for optimization. Our method iteratively transports a set of particles to match the target distribution, by applying a form of…
Negative distance kernels $K(x,y) := - \|x-y\|$ were used in the definition of maximum mean discrepancies (MMDs) in statistics and lead to favorable numerical results in various applications. In particular, so-called slicing techniques for…
This paper provides a general framework for Stein's density method for multivariate continuous distributions. The approach associates to any probability density function a canonical operator and Stein class, as well as an infinite…
Semi-implicit variational inference (SIVI) extends traditional variational families with semi-implicit distributions defined in a hierarchical manner. Due to the intractable densities of semi-implicit distributions, classical SIVI often…
In this paper we present a general framework for Stein's method for multivariate continuous distributions. The approach gives a collection of Stein characterisations, among which we highlight score-Stein operators and kernel Stein…
A mean function in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), or a kernel mean, is central to kernel methods in that it is used by many classical algorithms such as kernel principal component analysis, and it also forms the core inference…
We provide the first finite-particle convergence rate for Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD), a popular algorithm for approximating a probability distribution with a collection of particles. Specifically, whenever the target…