Related papers: MCMC for multi-modal distributions
We develop a modular approach to Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling for unnormalized target densities. In this approach, Markov chains are constructed in parallel, each constrained to a subset of the target space. The Monte Carlo…
We propose a new Monte Carlo method for sampling from multimodal distributions. The idea of this technique is based on splitting the task into two: finding the modes of a target distribution $\pi$ and sampling, given the knowledge of the…
The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling algorithm exploits Hamiltonian dynamics to construct efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), which has become increasingly popular in machine learning and statistics. Since HMC uses the gradient…
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is widely used for sampling from high dimensional target distributions with densities known up to proportionality. While HMC exhibits favorable scaling properties in high dimensions, it struggles with strongly…
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is a widely recognised as an efficient method for sampling a specified posterior distribution. However, when the posterior is multi-modal, conventional MCMC algorithms either tend to become…
The problem of sampling constrained continuous distributions has frequently appeared in many machine/statistical learning models. Many Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) sampling methods have been adapted to handle different types of…
We consider the theoretical analysis of Multiscale Sampling Methods, which are a new class of gradient-free Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for high dimensional inverse differential equation problems. A detailed presentation of…
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…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms provide a very general recipe for estimating properties of complicated distributions. While their use has become commonplace and there is a large literature on MCMC theory and practice, MCMC users…
In parameter estimation problems one computes a posterior distribution over uncertain parameters defined jointly by a prior distribution, a model, and noisy data. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is often used for the numerical solution of…
Handling multimodality that commonly arises from complicated statistical models remains a challenge. Current Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology tackling this subject is based on an ensemble of chains targeting a product of…
An introduction to numerical large-deviation sampling is provided. First, direct biasing with a known distribution is explained. As simple example, the Bernoulli experiment is used throughout the text. Next, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…
Parallel tempering is a meta-algorithm for Markov Chain Monte Carlo that uses multiple chains to sample from tempered versions of the target distribution, enhancing mixing in multi-modal distributions that are challenging for traditional…
The need to calibrate increasingly complex statistical models requires a persistent effort for further advances on available, computationally intensive Monte Carlo methods. We study here an advanced version of familiar Markov Chain Monte…
Cyclical MCMC is a novel MCMC framework recently proposed by Zhang et al. (2019) to address the challenge posed by high-dimensional multimodal posterior distributions like those arising in deep learning. The algorithm works by generating a…
Sampling from multimodal distributions is a challenging task in scientific computing. When a distribution has an exact symmetry between the modes, direct jumps among them can accelerate the samplings significantly. However, the…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are widely used in machine learning. One of the major problems with MCMC is the question of how to design chains that mix fast over the whole state space; in particular, how to select the parameters…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are indispensable when sampling from a complex, high-dimensional distribution by a conventional method is intractable. Even though MCMC is a powerful tool, it is also hard to control and tune in…
A number of problems in a variety of fields are characterised by target distributions with a multimodal structure in which the presence of several isolated local maxima dramatically reduces the efficiency of Markov Chain Monte Carlo…
In finite-size scaling analyses of Monte Carlo simulations of second-order phase transitions one often needs an extended temperature range around the critical point. By combining the parallel tempering algorithm with cluster updates and an…