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MCMC methods (Monte Carlo Markov Chain) are a class of methods used to perform simulations per a probability distribution $P$. These methods are often used when we have difficulties to directly sample per a given probability distribution…

We present a general-purpose method to train Markov chain Monte Carlo kernels, parameterized by deep neural networks, that converge and mix quickly to their target distribution. Our method generalizes Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and is trained…

Statistical inference in evolutionary models with site-dependence is a long-standing challenge in phylogenetics and computational biology. We consider the problem of approximating marginal sequence likelihoods under dependent-site models of…

Understanding stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its variants is essential for machine learning. However, most of the preceding analyses are conducted under amenable conditions such as unbiased gradient estimator and bounded objective…

The use of heuristics to assess the convergence and compress the output of Markov chain Monte Carlo can be sub-optimal in terms of the empirical approximations that are produced. Typically a number of the initial states are attributed to…

Modern computational advances have enabled easy parallel implementations of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). However, almost all work in estimating the variance of Monte Carlo averages, including the efficient batch means (BM) estimator,…

We propose a sequential Markov chain Monte Carlo (SMCMC) algorithm to sample from a sequence of probability distributions, corresponding to posterior distributions at different times in on-line applications. SMCMC proceeds as in usual MCMC…

We study the rate of convergence of the Markov chain on $S_n$ which starts with a random $(n-k)$-cycle for a fixed $k \geq 1$, followed by random transpositions. The convergence to the stationary distribution turns out to be of order $n$.…

It is commonly admitted that non-reversible Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms usually yield more accurate MCMC estimators than their reversible counterparts. In this note, we show that in addition to their variance reduction…

Adaptive and interacting Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms (MCMC) have been recently introduced in the literature. These novel simulation algorithms are designed to increase the simulation efficiency to sample complex distributions.…

We prove bounds on the variance of a function $f$ under the empirical measure of the samples obtained by the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm, with time complexity depending on local rather than global Markov chain mixing dynamics.…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are widely used in machine learning. One of the major problems with MCMC is the question of how to design chains that mix fast over the whole state space; in particular, how to select the parameters…

Bayesian analysis for Markov jump processes is a non-trivial and challenging problem. Although exact inference is theoretically possible, it is computationally demanding thus its applicability is limited to a small class of problems. In…

To avoid poor empirical performance in Metropolis-Hastings and other accept-reject-based algorithms practitioners often tune them by trial and error. Lower bounds on the convergence rate are developed in both total variation and Wasserstein…

Approximate Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) offers the promise of more rapid sampling at the cost of more biased inference. Since standard MCMC diagnostics fail to detect these biases, researchers have developed computable Stein discrepancy…

Stochastic gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) has been developed as a flexible family of scalable Bayesian sampling algorithms. However, there has been little theoretical analysis of the impact of minibatch size to the algorithm's…

Motivated by the physics of strings and branes, we introduce a general suite of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) "suburban samplers" (i.e., spread out Metropolis). The suburban algorithm involves an ensemble of statistical agents connected…

We prove finite sample complexities for sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms which require only local mixing times of the associated Markov kernels. Our bounds are particularly useful when the target distribution is multimodal and global…

This paper considers a new approach to using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) in contexts where one may adopt multilevel (ML) Monte Carlo. The underlying problem is to approximate expectations w.r.t. an underlying probability measure that is…

In this paper we present an extension of population-based Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to the trans-dimensional case. One of the main challenges in MCMC-based inference is that of simulating from high and trans-dimensional target…