English
Related papers

Related papers: Perfecting MCMC Sampling: Recipes and Reservations

200 papers

This paper provides sufficient conditions over the sequence of samples and parameters of an adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to ensure ergodicity with respect to a target distribution that can have unbounded support. These…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-17 Alexandre Chotard

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…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2018-06-27 Ajay Jasra , Kody Law , Yaxian Xu

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are often used for approximate inference inside learning, but their slow mixing can be difficult to diagnose and the approximations can seriously degrade learning. To alleviate these issues, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-02-25 Jacob Steinhardt , Percy Liang

Invention involves combination, or more precisely, ratios of composition. According to Thomas Edison, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration" is an example. In many situations, researchers and inventors already have…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-07-01 Yachiko Obara , Tetsuro Morimura , Hiroki Yanagisawa

This paper is intended to appear as a chapter for the Handbook of Markov Chain Monte Carlo. The goal of this chapter is to unify various problems at the intersection of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and machine…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-02-16 Alexandre Bouchard-Côté , Trevor Campbell , Geoff Pleiss , Nikola Surjanovic

A new Monte Carlo algorithm for phase-space sampling, named (MC)**3, is presented. It is based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques but at the same time incorporates prior knowledge about the target distribution in the form of suitable…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2015-06-12 Kevin Kroeninger , Steffen Schumann , Benjamin Willenberg

We propose a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm based on Gibbs sampling with parallel tempering to solve nonlinear optimal control problems. The algorithm is applicable to nonlinear systems with dynamics that can be approximately…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-10 João Hespanha , Kerem Camsari

Current reporting of results based on Markov chain Monte Carlo computations could be improved. In particular, a measure of the accuracy of the resulting estimates is rarely reported. Thus we have little ability to objectively assess the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2009-09-29 James M. Flegal , Murali Haran , Galin L. Jones

This is a free textbook suitable for a one-semester course on Markov chains, covering basics of finite-state chains, many classical models, asymptotic behavior and mixing times, Monte Carlo methods, and martingales and harmonic functions.…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-10-17 Soumik Pal , Tim Mesikepp

This file is the Sweave documentation for the examples provided in Flegal, J. M. and Jones, G. L. (2010), "Implementing Markov chain Monte Carlo: Estimating with confidence", in Handbook of Markov Chain Monte Carlo, edited by Brooks, S.,…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2010-06-30 James M. Flegal , Galin L. Jones

In this chapter, we review some of the most standard MCMC tools used in Bayesian computation, along with vignettes on standard misunderstandings of these approaches taken from Q \&~A's on the forum Cross-validated answered by the first…

Computation · Statistics 2020-01-20 Christian P. Robert , Wu Changye

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) requires to evaluate the full data likelihood at different parameter values iteratively and is often computationally infeasible for large data sets. In this paper, we propose to approximate the log-likelihood…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-05-26 Guanyu Hu , HaiYing Wang

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is widely regarded as one of the most important algorithms of the 20th century. Its guarantees of asymptotic convergence, stability, and estimator-variance bounds using only unnormalized probability functions…

Evaluating the degree of partisan districting (Gerrymandering) in a statistical framework typically requires an ensemble of districting plans which are drawn from a prescribed probability distribution that adheres to a realistic and…

Computation · Statistics 2020-08-19 Gregory Herschlag , Jonathan C. Mattingly , Matthias Sachs , Evan Wyse

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a class of algorithms to sample complex and high-dimensional probability distributions. The Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, the workhorse of MCMC, provides a simple recipe to construct reversible…

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…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-08-20 Yun Yang , David B. Dunson

Multicanonical MCMC (Multicanonical Markov Chain Monte Carlo; Multicanonical Monte Carlo) is discussed as a method of rare event sampling. Starting from a review of the generic framework of importance sampling, multicanonical MCMC is…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-10-20 Yukito Iba , Nen Saito , Akimasa Kitajima

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are routinely used to draw samples from distributions with intractable normalization constants. However, standard MCMC algorithms do not apply to doubly-intractable distributions in which there are…

Computation · Statistics 2012-07-02 Iain Murray , Zoubin Ghahramani , David MacKay

This is a concise mathematical introduction to Monte Carlo methods, a rich family of algorithms with far-reaching applications in science and engineering. Monte Carlo methods are an exciting subject for mathematical statisticians and…

Computation · Statistics 2024-05-28 Daniel Sanz-Alonso , Omar Al-Ghattas

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.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2012-03-15 G. Fort , E. Moulines , P. Priouret