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We study the problem of estimating a distribution over a finite alphabet from an i.i.d. sample, with accuracy measured in relative entropy (Kullback-Leibler divergence). While optimal bounds on the expected risk are known, high-probability…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-27 Jaouad Mourtada

Many methods for machine learning rely on approximate inference from intractable probability distributions. Variational inference approximates such distributions by tractable models that can be subsequently used for approximate inference.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-08 Oleg Arenz , Mingjun Zhong , Gerhard Neumann

Most applications of Bayesian Inference for parameter estimation and model selection in astrophysics involve the use of Monte Carlo techniques such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and nested sampling. However, these techniques are time…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-26 Geetakrishnasai Gunapati , Anirudh Jain , P. K. Srijith , Shantanu Desai

The causal (belief) network is a well-known graphical structure for representing independencies in a joint probability distribution. The exact methods and the approximation methods, which perform probabilistic inference in causal networks,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-04-05 Richard E. Neapolitan , James Kenevan

Along with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, variational inference (VI) has emerged as a central computational approach to large-scale Bayesian inference. Rather than sampling from the true posterior $\pi$, VI aims at producing a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-04-24 Marc Lambert , Sinho Chewi , Francis Bach , Silvère Bonnabel , Philippe Rigollet

This paper introduces a novel Bayesian approach to detect changes in the variance of a Gaussian sequence model, focusing on quantifying the uncertainty in the change point locations and providing a scalable algorithm for inference. Such a…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-03-04 Lorenzo Cappello , Oscar Hernan Madrid Padilla

We derive a new variational formula for the R\'enyi family of divergences, $R_\alpha(Q\|P)$, between probability measures $Q$ and $P$. Our result generalizes the classical Donsker-Varadhan variational formula for the Kullback-Leibler…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-07-21 Jeremiah Birrell , Paul Dupuis , Markos A. Katsoulakis , Luc Rey-Bellet , Jie Wang

Variational inference (VI) plays an essential role in approximate Bayesian inference due to its computational efficiency and broad applicability. Crucial to the performance of VI is the selection of the associated divergence measure, as VI…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-24 Ruqi Zhang , Yingzhen Li , Christopher De Sa , Sam Devlin , Cheng Zhang

The core principle of Variational Inference (VI) is to convert the statistical inference problem of computing complex posterior probability densities into a tractable optimization problem. This property enables VI to be faster than several…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-25 Ankush Ganguly , Sanjana Jain , Ukrit Watchareeruetai

This work presents an upper-bound to value that the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence can reach for a class of probability distributions called quantum distributions (QD). The aim is to find a distribution $U$ which maximizes the KL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-11 Vincenzo Bonnici

Variational inference has become an increasingly attractive fast alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for approximate Bayesian inference. However, a major obstacle to the widespread use of variational methods is the lack of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-03-03 Jonathan H. Huggins , Mikołaj Kasprzak , Trevor Campbell , Tamara Broderick

Variational inference (VI) has become the method of choice for fitting many modern probabilistic models. However, practitioners are faced with a fragmented literature that offers a bewildering array of algorithmic options. First, the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-11-29 Thang D. Bui , Cuong V. Nguyen , Siddharth Swaroop , Richard E. Turner

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is crucial in machine learning, yet most (axiomatic) studies of uncertainty measures focus on classification, leaving a gap in regression settings with limited formal justification and evaluations. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-19 Christopher Bülte , Yusuf Sale , Timo Löhr , Paul Hofman , Gitta Kutyniok , Eyke Hüllermeier

Amortized inference allows latent-variable models trained via variational learning to scale to large datasets. The quality of approximate inference is determined by two factors: a) the capacity of the variational distribution to match the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-29 Chris Cremer , Xuechen Li , David Duvenaud

There are essentially three kinds of approaches to Uncertainty Quantification (UQ): (A) robust optimization, (B) Bayesian, (C) decision theory. Although (A) is robust, it is unfavorable with respect to accuracy and data assimilation. (B)…

Pursuing invariant prediction from heterogeneous environments opens the door to learning causality in a purely data-driven way and has several applications in causal discovery and robust transfer learning. However, existing methods such as…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-01-30 Yihong Gu , Cong Fang , Yang Xu , Zijian Guo , Jianqing Fan

Bayesian inference for high-dimensional inverse problems is computationally costly and requires selecting a suitable prior distribution. Amortized variational inference addresses these challenges via a neural network that approximates the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-01-19 Ali Siahkoohi , Gabrio Rizzuti , Rafael Orozco , Felix J. Herrmann

Variational Bayes (VB) is a popular and computationally efficient method to approximate the posterior distribution in Bayesian inference, especially when the exact posterior is analytically intractable and sampling-based approaches are…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-12-30 Jiaming Liu , Meng Li

Causal inference from observational data provides strong evidence for the best action in decision-making without performing expensive randomized trials. The effect of an action is usually not identifiable under unobserved confounding, even…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Md Musfiqur Rahman , Ziwei Jiang , Hilaf Hasson , Murat Kocaoglu

Uncertainty quantification is a critical aspect of machine learning models, providing important insights into the reliability of predictions and aiding the decision-making process in real-world applications. This paper proposes a novel way…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-02 Yusuf Sale , Paul Hofman , Lisa Wimmer , Eyke Hüllermeier , Thomas Nagler