Related papers: Block coupling and rapidly mixing k-heights
Many applications in network analysis require algorithms to sample uniformly at random from the set of all graphs with a prescribed degree sequence. We present a Markov chain based approach which converges to the uniform distribution of all…
Establishing cutoff, an abrupt transition from "not mixed" to "well mixed", is a classical topic in the theory of mixing times for Markov chains. Interest has grown recently in determining not only the existence of cutoff and the order of…
Popular network models such as the mixed membership and standard stochastic block model are known to exhibit distinct geometric structure when embedded into $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ using spectral methods. The resulting point cloud concentrates…
A random walk is a basic stochastic process on graphs and a key primitive in the design of distributed algorithms. One of the most important features of random walks is that, under mild conditions, they converge to a stationary distribution…
Many seemingly disparate Markov chains are unified when viewed as random walks on the set of chambers of a hyperplane arrangement. These include the Tsetlin library of theoretical computer science and various shuffling schemes. If only…
The switch chain is a well-known Markov chain for sampling directed graphs with a given degree sequence. While not ergodic in general, we show that it is ergodic for regular degree sequences. We then prove that the switch chain is rapidly…
The estimation of correspondences between two images resp. point sets is a core problem in computer vision. One way to formulate the problem is graph matching leading to the quadratic assignment problem which is NP-hard. Several so called…
We present a Markov chain on the $n$-dimensional hypercube $\{0,1\}^n$ which satisfies $t_{{\rm mix}}(\epsilon) = n[1 + o(1)]$. This Markov chain alternates between random and deterministic moves and we prove that the chain has cut-off with…
We investigate the mixing rate of a Markov chain where a combination of long distance edges and non-reversibility is introduced: as a first step, we focus here on the following graphs: starting from the cycle graph, we select random nodes…
One-shot coupling is a method of bounding the convergence rate between two copies of a Markov chain in total variation distance, which was first introduced by Roberts and Rosenthal and generalized by Madras and Sezer. The method is divided…
We consider the problem of uniformly generating a spanning tree, of a connected undirected graph. This process is useful to compute statistics, namely for phylogenetic trees. We describe a Markov chain for producing these trees. For cycle…
We discuss convergence and coupling of Markov chains, and present general relations between the transfer matrices describing these two processes. We then analyze a recently developed local-patch algorithm, which computes rigorous upper…
We study the problem of generating connected random graphs with no self-loops or multiple edges and that, in addition, have a given degree sequence. The generation method we focus on is the edge-switching Markov-chain method, whose…
Graph clustering is a central topic in unsupervised learning with a multitude of practical applications. In recent years, multi-view graph clustering has gained a lot of attention for its applicability to real-world instances where one has…
Within the framework of Gaussian graphical models, a prior distribution for the underlying graph is introduced to induce a block structure in the adjacency matrix of the graph and learning relationships between fixed groups of variables. A…
We propose a Markov chain simulation method to generate simple connected random graphs with a specified degree sequence and level of clustering. The networks generated by our algorithm are random in all other respects and can thus serve as…
We study a Markov chain with very different mixing rates depending on how mixing is measured. The chain is the "Burnside process on the hypercube $C_2^n$." Started at the all-zeros state, it mixes in a bounded number of steps, no matter how…
Considering a Markov chain defined on a cycle, near-quadratic improvement of mixing is shown when only a subtle perturbation is introduced to the structure and non-reversible transition probabilities are used. More precisely, a mixing time…
Couplings play a central role in contemporary Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and in the analysis of their convergence to stationarity. In most cases, a coupling must induce relatively fast meeting between chains to ensure good…
A $k$-block in a graph $G$ is a maximal set of at least $k$ vertices no two of which can be separated in $G$ by fewer than $k$ other vertices. The block number $\beta(G)$ of $G$ is the largest integer $k$ such that $G$ has a $k$-block. We…