Related papers: Automated Importance Sampling via Optimal Control …

In order to tackle the problem of sampling from heavy tailed, high dimensional distributions via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, Yang, Latuszy\'nski, and Roberts (2022) (arXiv:2205.12112) introduces the stereographic projection as…

In this paper, we consider a class of stochastic optimal control problems with risk constraints that are expressed as bounded probabilities of failure for particular initial states. We present here a martingale approach that diffuses a risk…

This paper investigates asymptotically optimal importance sampling (IS) schemes for pricing European call options under the Heston stochastic volatility model. We focus on two distinct rare-event regimes where standard Monte Carlo methods…

Estimating rare events in complex systems is a key challenge in reliability analysis. The challenge grows in multimodal problems, where traditional methods often rely on a small set of design points and risk overlooking critical failure…

Importance sampling is a variance reduction technique for efficient estimation of rare-event probabilities by Monte Carlo. In standard importance sampling schemes, the system is simulated using an a priori fixed change of measure suggested…

Statistical signal processing applications usually require the estimation of some parameters of interest given a set of observed data. These estimates are typically obtained either by solving a multi-variate optimization problem, as in the…

We consider the problem of estimating the asymptotic variance of a function defined on a Markov chain, an important step for statistical inference of the stationary mean. We design a novel recursive estimator that requires $O(1)$…

In this paper the choice of the Bernoulli distribution as biased distribution for importance sampling (IS) Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation of linear block codes over binary symmetric channels (BSCs) is studied. Based on the analytical…

Stochastic variance reduction has proven effective at accelerating first-order algorithms for solving convex finite-sum optimization tasks such as empirical risk minimization. Incorporating second-order information has proven helpful in…

In this paper, we propose a sequential directional importance sampling (SDIS) method for rare event estimation. SDIS expresses a small failure probability in terms of a sequence of auxiliary failure probabilities, defined by magnifying the…

In many hierarchical inverse problems, not only do we want to estimate high- or infinite-dimensional model parameters in the parameter-to-observable maps, but we also have to estimate hyperparameters that represent critical assumptions in…

This paper addresses sampling-based trajectory optimization for risk-aware navigation under stochastic dynamics. Typically such approaches operate by computing $\tilde{N}$ perturbed rollouts around the nominal dynamics to estimate the…

This paper deals with the problem of estimating second-order parameter sensitivities for stochastic reaction networks, where the reaction dynamics is modeled as a continuous time Markov chain over a discrete state space. Estimation of such…

This paper considers optimal control of dynamical systems which are represented by nonlinear stochastic differential equations. It is well-known that the optimal control policy for this problem can be obtained as a function of a value…

This paper presents a stochastic model predictive control approach for nonlinear systems subject to time-invariant probabilistic uncertainties in model parameters and initial conditions. The stochastic optimal control problem entails a cost…

Minimization of a stochastic cost function is commonly used for approximate sampling in high-dimensional Bayesian inverse problems with Gaussian prior distributions and multimodal posterior distributions. The density of the samples…

We develop a new algorithm for the estimation of rare event probabilities associated with the steady-state of a Markov stochastic process with continuous state space $\mathbb R^d$ and discrete time steps (i.e. a discrete-time $\mathbb…

We introduce a framework for efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms targeting discrete-valued high-dimensional distributions, such as posterior distributions in Bayesian variable selection (BVS) problems. We show that many…

This work introduces a novel framework for precisely and efficiently estimating rare event probabilities in complex, high-dimensional non-Gaussian spaces, building on our foundational Approximate Sampling Target with Post-processing…

In many applications, Bayesian inverse problems can give rise to probability distributions which contain complexities due to the Hessian varying greatly across parameter space. This complexity often manifests itself as lower dimensional…