Related papers: An efficient Monte Carlo method for valid prior-fr…

Inferential models (IMs) offer provably reliable, data-driven, possibilistic statistical inference. But despite the IM framework's theoretical and foundational advantages, efficient computation is a challenge. This paper presents a simple…

An inferential model (IM) is a model describing the construction of provably reliable, data-driven uncertainty quantification and inference about relevant unknowns. IMs and Fisher's fiducial argument have similar objectives, but a…

When prior information is lacking, the go-to strategy for probabilistic inference is to combine a "default prior" and the likelihood via Bayes's theorem. Objective Bayes, (generalized) fiducial inference, etc. fall under this umbrella. This…

The inferential model (IM) framework offers alternatives to the familiar probabilistic (e.g., Bayesian and fiducial) uncertainty quantification in statistical inference. Allowing this uncertainty quantification to be imprecise makes it…

Posterior probabilistic statistical inference without priors is an important but so far elusive goal. Fisher's fiducial inference, Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions, and Bayesian inference with default priors are attempts to…

Inferential models (IMs) are data-dependent, imprecise-probabilistic structures designed to quantify uncertainty about unknowns. As the name suggests, the focus has been on uncertainty quantification for inference and on its reliability…

The inferential model (IM) framework produces data-dependent, non-additive degrees of belief about the unknown parameter that are provably valid. The validity property guarantees, among other things, that inference procedures derived from…

Approximate inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGMs) can be grouped into deterministic methods and Monte-Carlo-based methods. The former can often provide accurate and rapid inferences, but are typically associated with biases…

Models of stochastic processes are widely used in almost all fields of science. Theory validation, parameter estimation, and prediction all require model calibration and statistical inference using data. However, data are almost always…

Many statistical models can be simulated forwards but have intractable likelihoods. Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) methods are used to infer properties of these models from data. Traditionally these methods approximate the posterior…

The inferential model (IM) framework offers an alternative to the classical probabilistic (e.g., Bayesian and fiducial) uncertainty quantification in statistical inference. A key distinction is that classical uncertainty quantification…

The development of statistical methods for valid and efficient probabilistic inference without prior distributions has a long history. Fisher's fiducial inference is perhaps the most famous of these attempts. We argue that, despite its…

We describe an embarrassingly parallel, anytime Monte Carlo method for likelihood-free models. The algorithm starts with the view that the stochasticity of the pseudo-samples generated by the simulator can be controlled externally by a…

Likelihood-free methods, such as approximate Bayesian computation, are powerful tools for practical inference problems with intractable likelihood functions. Markov chain Monte Carlo and sequential Monte Carlo variants of approximate…

Besides the classical motivation of fusing evidence from multiple sources, modern inferential procedures based on randomization, resampling, and data splitting often introduce analyst-generated multiplicity, where aggregating outputs across…

The use of standard statistical methods, such as maximum likelihood, is often justified based on their asymptotic properties. For suitably regular models, this theory is standard but, when the model is non-regular, e.g., the support depends…

This paper focuses on variational inference with intractable likelihood functions that can be unbiasedly estimated. A flexible variational approximation based on Gaussian mixtures is developed, by adopting the mixture population Monte Carlo…

We develop a Monte Carlo-free approach to inference post output from randomized algorithms with a convex loss and a convex penalty. The pivotal statistic based on a truncated law, called the selective pivot, usually lacks closed form…

Bayesian inference for doubly-intractable pairwise exponential graphical models typically involves variations of the exchange algorithm or approximate Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers. However, existing methods for both classes of…

Recent advances in stochastic gradient variational inference have made it possible to perform variational Bayesian inference with posterior approximations containing auxiliary random variables. This enables us to explore a new synthesis of…