Related papers: Variance bounds and robust tuning for pseudo-margi…
The classical Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm can be extended to generate non-reversible Markov chains. This is achieved by means of a modification of the acceptance probability, using the notion of vorticity matrix. The resulting Markov…
We propose a new class of learning algorithms that combines variational approximation and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation. Naive algorithms that use the variational approximation as proposal distribution can perform poorly…
The computation of Bayesian estimates of system parameters and functions of them on the basis of observed system performance data is a common problem within system identification. This is a previously studied issue where stochastic…
Importance sampling and independent Metropolis-Hastings (IMH) are among the fundamental building blocks of Monte Carlo methods. Both require a proposal distribution that globally approximates the target distribution. The Radon-Nikodym…
We consider the problem of inference for nonlinear, multivariate diffusion processes, satisfying It\^o stochastic differential equations (SDEs), using data at discrete times that may be incomplete and subject to measurement error. Our…
In engineering examples, one often encounters the need to sample from unnormalized distributions with complex shapes that may also be implicitly defined through a physical or numerical simulation model, making it computationally expensive…
Traditional methods for unsupervised learning of finite mixture models require to evaluate the likelihood of all components of the mixture. This becomes computationally prohibitive when the number of components is large, as it is, for…
Exact parameter and trajectory inference in state-space models is typically achieved by one of two methods: particle marginal Metropolis-Hastings (PMMH) or particle Gibbs (PGibbs). PMMH is a pseudo-marginal algorithm which jointly proposes…
A classical approach for approximating expectations of functions w.r.t. partially known distributions is to compute the average of function values along a trajectory of a Metropolis-Hastings (MH) Markov chain. A key part in the MH algorithm…
We analyse computational efficiency of Metropolis-Hastings algorithms with stochastic AR(1) process proposals. These proposals include, as a subclass, discretized Langevin diffusion (e.g. MALA) and discretized Hamiltonian dynamics (e.g.…
Over the last decades, various "non-linear" MCMC methods have arisen. While appealing for their convergence speed and efficiency, their practical implementation and theoretical study remain challenging. In this paper, we introduce a…
We demonstrate the use of a variational method to determine a quantitative lower bound on the rate of convergence of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms as a function of the target density and proposal density. The bound relies on…
We examine the behaviour of the pseudo-marginal random walk Metropolis algorithm, where evaluations of the target density for the accept/reject probability are estimated rather than computed precisely. Under relatively general conditions on…
A significant part of MCMC methods can be considered as the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm with different proposal distributions. From this point of view, the problem of constructing a sampler can be reduced to the question - how to…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are one of the most popular classes of algorithms for sampling from a target probability distribution. A rising trend in recent years consists in analyzing the convergence of MCMC algorithms using…
In this paper, we study the asymptotic variance of sample path averages for inhomogeneous Markov chains that evolve alternatingly according to two different $\pi$-reversible Markov transition kernels $P$ and $Q$. More specifically, our main…
Probabilistic programming languages can simplify the development of machine learning techniques, but only if inference is sufficiently scalable. Unfortunately, Bayesian parameter estimation for highly coupled models such as regressions and…
The multiple-try Metropolis (MTM) algorithm is an extension of the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm by selecting the proposed state among multiple trials according to some weight function. Although MTM has gained great popularity owing to…
The objective of this article is to study the asymptotic behavior of a new particle filtering approach in the context of hidden Markov models (HMMs). In particular, we develop an algorithm where the latent-state sequence is segmented into…
The performance of Metropolis-Hastings algorithms is highly sensitive to the choice of step size, and miss-specification can lead to severe loss of efficiency. We study algorithms with randomized step sizes, considering both…