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In this contribution, we propose a new computationally efficient method to combine Variational Inference (VI) with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). This approach can be used with generic MCMC kernels, but is especially well suited to…

We introduce a new class of Monte Carlo based approximations of expectations of random variables such that their laws are only available via certain discretizations. Sampling from the discretized versions of these laws can typically…

Computation · Statistics 2017-10-17 Dan Crisan , Pierre Del Moral , Jeremie Houssineau , Ajay Jasra

We survey continuous-time generative modeling methods based on transporting a simple reference distribution to a data distribution via stochastic or deterministic dynamics. We present a unified framework in which diffusion models,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Aditya Ranganath , Mukesh Singhal

Deriving Bayesian inference for exponential random graph models (ERGMs) is a challenging "doubly intractable" problem as the normalizing constants of the likelihood and posterior density are both intractable. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…

Computation · Statistics 2019-11-26 Linda S. L. Tan , Nial Friel

We present in this paper a hybrid, Multi-Level Monte Carlo (MLMC) method for solving the neutral particle transport equation. MLMC methods, originally developed to solve parametric integration problems, work by using a cheap, low fidelity…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-08-06 Vincent N. Novellino , Dmitriy Y. Anistratov

This paper focuses on variational inference with intractable likelihood functions that can be unbiasedly estimated. A flexible variational approximation based on Gaussian mixtures is developed, by adopting the mixture population Monte Carlo…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2021-12-02 Zhijian He , Shifeng Huo , Tianhui Yang

In this paper, we study the Schr\"odinger Bridge Problem (SBP), which is central to entropic optimal transport. For general reference processes and begin--endpoint distributions, we propose a forward-reverse iterative Monte Carlo procedure…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-07-02 Denis Belomestny , John. Schoenmakers

Diffusion and flow-based generative models have achieved remarkable success in domains such as image synthesis, video generation, and natural language modeling. In this work, we extend these advances to weight space learning by leveraging…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-17 Daniel Saragih , Deyu Cao , Tejas Balaji

Flow and diffusion models have demonstrated strong performance and training stability across various tasks but lack two critical properties of simulation-based methods: freedom of dimensionality and adaptability to different inference…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-13 Dohoon Lee , Jaehyun Park , Hyunwoo J. Kim , Kyogu Lee

This study builds upon our previous work by introducing a refined Inductive Conformal Martingale (ICM) approach for addressing Concept Drift (CD). Specifically, we enhance our previously proposed CAUTIOUS betting function to incorporate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Charalambos Eliades , Harris Papadopoulos

Generative diffusions are a powerful class of Monte Carlo samplers that leverage bridging Markov processes to approximate complex, high-dimensional distributions, such as those found in image processing and language models. Despite their…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-20 Zheng Zhao , Ziwei Luo , Jens Sjölund , Thomas B. Schön

We present an extensive Monte Carlo study on light transport in optically thin slabs, addressing both axial and transverse propagation. We completely characterize the so-called ballistic-to-diffusive transition, notably in terms of the…

This paper derives two new optimization-driven Monte Carlo algorithms inspired from variable splitting and data augmentation. In particular, the formulation of one of the proposed approaches is closely related to the alternating direction…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-03-27 Maxime Vono , Nicolas Dobigeon , Pierre Chainais

Restricted Boltzmann Machines are simple and powerful generative models that can encode any complex dataset. Despite all their advantages, in practice the trainings are often unstable and it is difficult to assess their quality because the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-16 Nicolas Béreux , Aurélien Decelle , Cyril Furtlehner , Beatriz Seoane

Sampling from high-dimensional, multi-modal distributions remains a fundamental challenge across domains such as statistical Bayesian inference and physics-based machine learning. In this paper, we propose Annealing Flow (AF), a method…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-28 Dongze Wu , Yao Xie

We obtain new transport-entropy inequalities and, as a by-product, new deviation estimates for the laws of two kinds of discrete stochastic approximation schemes. The first one refers to the law of an Euler like discretization scheme of a…

Probability · Mathematics 2013-02-01 Max Fathi , Noufel Frikha

Reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) proposals that achieve reasonable acceptance rates and mixing are notoriously difficult to design in most applications. Inspired by recent advances in deep neural network-based normalizing…

Computation · Statistics 2023-02-28 Laurence Davies , Robert Salomone , Matthew Sutton , Christopher Drovandi

Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods for estimating integrals are attractive since the resulting estimators typically converge at a faster rate than pseudo-random Monte Carlo. However, they can be difficult to set up on arbitrary posterior…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-10-03 Tobias Schwedes , Ben Calderhead

This paper extends the Multilevel Monte Carlo variance reduction technique to nonlinear filtering. In particular, Multilevel Monte Carlo is applied to a certain variant of the particle filter, the Ensemble Transform Particle Filter. A key…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2016-02-24 Alastair Gregory , Colin Cotter , Sebastian Reich

Discrete data are abundant and often arise as counts or rounded data. These data commonly exhibit complex distributional features such as zero-inflation, over-/under-dispersion, boundedness, and heaping, which render many parametric models…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-02-27 Daniel R. Kowal , Bohan Wu