Related papers: Variational inference for hierarchical models with…
The choice of approximate posterior distribution is one of the core problems in variational inference. Most applications of variational inference employ simple families of posterior approximations in order to allow for efficient inference,…
Many recent advances in large scale probabilistic inference rely on variational methods. The success of variational approaches depends on (i) formulating a flexible parametric family of distributions, and (ii) optimizing the parameters to…
We develop a fast variational approximation scheme for Gaussian process (GP) regression, where the spectrum of the covariance function is subjected to a sparse approximation. Our approach enables uncertainty in covariance function…
Hierarchical models represent a challenging setting for inference algorithms. MCMC methods struggle to scale to large models with many local variables and observations, and variational inference (VI) may fail to provide accurate…
In an indirect Gaussian sequence space model lower and upper bounds are derived for the concentration rate of the posterior distribution of the parameter of interest shrinking to the parameter value $\theta^\circ$ that generates the data.…
Gaussian graphical models have been used to study intrinsic dependence among several variables, but the Gaussianity assumption may be restrictive in many applications. A nonparanormal graphical model is a semiparametric generalization for…
Approximating complex probability distributions, such as Bayesian posterior distributions, is of central interest in many applications. We study the expressivity of geometric Gaussian approximations. These consist of approximations by…
Learning the causal structure that underlies data is a crucial step towards robust real-world decision making. The majority of existing work in causal inference focuses on determining a single directed acyclic graph (DAG) or a Markov…
Stochastic variational inference algorithms are derived for fitting various heteroskedastic time series models. We examine Gaussian, t, and skew-t response GARCH models and fit these using Gaussian variational approximating densities. We…
Variational inference offers scalable and flexible tools to tackle intractable Bayesian inference of modern statistical models like Bayesian neural networks and Gaussian processes. For largely over-parameterized models, however, the…
In high-dimensions, the prior tails can have a significant effect on both posterior computation and asymptotic concentration rates. To achieve optimal rates while keeping the posterior computations relatively simple, an empirical Bayes…
In statistical applications, it is common to encounter parameters supported on a varying or unknown dimensional space. Examples include the fused lasso regression, the matrix recovery under an unknown low rank, etc. Despite the ease of…
Modern statistical applications involving large data sets have focused attention on statistical methodologies which are both efficient computationally and able to deal with the screening of large numbers of different candidate models. Here…
Variational Bayesian posterior inference often requires simplifying approximations such as mean-field parametrisation to ensure tractability. However, prior work has associated the variational mean-field approximation for Bayesian neural…
Vecchia's approximate likelihood for Gaussian process parameters depends on how the observations are ordered, which can be viewed as a deficiency because the exact likelihood is permutation-invariant. This article takes the alternative…
Variational inference is a powerful tool for approximate inference, and it has been recently applied for representation learning with deep generative models. We develop the variational Gaussian process (VGP), a Bayesian nonparametric…
Stochastic variational inference makes it possible to approximate posterior distributions induced by large datasets quickly using stochastic optimization. The algorithm relies on the use of fully factorized variational distributions.…
Gaussian process models are commonly used as emulators for computer experiments. However, developing a Gaussian process emulator can be computationally prohibitive when the number of experimental samples is even moderately large. Local…
Variational Inference is a powerful tool in the Bayesian modeling toolkit, however, its effectiveness is determined by the expressivity of the utilized variational distributions in terms of their ability to match the true posterior…
This paper presents an efficient Bayesian framework for solving nonlinear, high-dimensional model calibration problems. It is based on a Variational Bayesian formulation that aims at approximating the exact posterior by means of solving an…