Related papers: A probabilistic diagnostic for Laplace approximati…
Complex phenomena in engineering and the sciences are often modeled with computationally intensive feed-forward simulations for which a tractable analytic likelihood does not exist. In these cases, it is sometimes necessary to estimate an…
The key operation in Bayesian inference, is to compute high-dimensional integrals. An old approximate technique is the Laplace method or approximation, which dates back to Pierre- Simon Laplace (1774). This simple idea approximates the…
Using a hierarchical construction, we develop methods for a wide and flexible class of models by taking a fully parametric approach to generalized linear mixed models with complex covariance dependence. The Laplace approximation is used to…
We study approximations to the Moreau envelope -- and infimal convolutions more broadly -- based on Laplace's method, a classical tool in analysis which ties certain integrals to suprema of their integrands. We believe the connection…
Several concepts of approximate reasoning in uncertainty processing are linked to the processing of distribution functions. In this paper we make use of probabilistic framework of approximate reasoning by proposing a Lebesgue-type approach…
The Laplace approximation is sometimes not sufficiently accurate for smoothing parameter estimation in generalized additive mixed models. A novel estimation strategy is proposed that solves this problem and leads to estimates exhibiting the…
Latent Gaussian models (LGMs) are a popular class of Bayesian hierarchical models that include Gaussian processes, as well as certain spatial models and mixed-effect models. Efficient Bayesian inference of LGMs often requires marginalizing…
This paper introduces a Laplace approximation to Bayesian inference in Dirichlet regression models, which can be used to analyze a set of variables on a simplex exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the…
Most of the existing methods for estimating the local intrinsic dimension of a data distribution do not scale well to high-dimensional data. Many of them rely on a non-parametric nearest neighbors approach which suffers from the curse of…
Laplace's method approximates a target density with a Gaussian distribution at its mode. It is computationally efficient and asymptotically exact for Bayesian inference due to the Bernstein-von Mises theorem, but for complex targets and…
State-space models are used to describe and analyse dynamical systems. They are ubiquitously used in many scientific fields such as signal processing, finance and ecology to name a few. Particle filters are popular inferential methods used…
We introduce a compositional framework for convex analysis based on the notion of convex bifunction of Rockafellar. This framework is well-suited to graphical reasoning, and exhibits rich dualities such as the Legendre-Fenchel transform,…
Computing the probability of a formula given the probabilities or weights associated with other formulas is a natural extension of logical inference to the probabilistic setting. Surprisingly, this problem has received little attention in…
In this paper we obtain an approximation for the multivariate Laplace's integral with a large parameter and estimate error term for two cases, when the maximum of the exponent is in the interior of the domain and on the boundary. We are…
The linearized-Laplace approximation (LLA) has been shown to be effective and efficient in constructing Bayesian neural networks. It is theoretically compelling since it can be seen as a Gaussian process posterior with the mean function…
The Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA) is a deterministic approach to Bayesian inference on latent Gaussian models (LGMs) and focuses on fast and accurate approximation of posterior marginals for the parameters in the models.…
Likelihood-free methods are an essential tool for performing inference for implicit models which can be simulated from, but for which the corresponding likelihood is intractable. However, common likelihood-free methods do not scale well to…
Laplace approximations are popular techniques for endowing deep networks with epistemic uncertainty estimates as they can be applied without altering the predictions of the trained network, and they scale to large models and datasets. While…
The likelihood function plays a pivotal role in statistical inference; it is adaptable to a wide range of models and the resultant estimators are known to have good properties. However, these results hinge on correct specification of the…
The Laplace approximation is a popular method for constructing a Gaussian approximation to the Bayesian posterior and thereby approximating the posterior mean and variance. But approximation quality is a concern. One might consider using…