Related papers: Stein-based Optimization of Sampling Distributions…
Extreme environmental events frequently exhibit spatial and temporal dependence. These data are often modeled using max stable processes (MSPs). MSPs are computationally prohibitive to fit for as few as a dozen observations, with supposed…
We propose a novel deterministic sampling method to approximate a target distribution $\rho^*$ by minimizing the kernel discrepancy, also known as the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD). By employing the general \emph{energetic variational…
We consider a first order stochastic optimization framework where, at each iteration, $K$ independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) data point samples are drawn, based on which stochastic gradients can be queried. We allow gradient noise…
We propose a Stein variational distributionally robust controller for nonlinear dynamical systems with latent parametric uncertainty. The method is an alternative to conservative worst-case ambiguity-set optimization with a deterministic…
We propose Selective Multiple Power Iterations (SMPI), a new algorithm to address the important Tensor PCA problem that consists in recovering a spike $\bf{v_0}^{\otimes k}$ corrupted by a Gaussian noise tensor $\bf{Z} \in…
Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) is a general-purpose optimization-based sampling algorithm that has recently exploded in popularity, but is limited by two issues: it is known to produce biased samples, and it can be slow to…
We propose a unifying view of two different Bayesian inference algorithms, Stochastic Gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) and Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD), leading to improved and efficient novel sampling schemes. We…
Optimizing trajectory costs for nonlinear control systems remains a significant challenge. Model Predictive Control (MPC), particularly sampling-based approaches such as the Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) method, has recently…
We consider the problem of sampling transition paths between two given metastable states of a molecular system, e.g. a folded and unfolded protein or products and reactants of a chemical reaction. Due to the existence of high energy…
We are interested in gradient-based Explicit Generative Modeling where samples can be derived from iterative gradient updates based on an estimate of the score function of the data distribution. Recent advances in Stochastic Gradient…
We study distributed optimization algorithms for minimizing the average of \emph{heterogeneous} functions distributed across several machines with a focus on communication efficiency. In such settings, naively using the classical stochastic…
Safe path planning is a crucial component in autonomous robotics. The many approaches to find a collision free path can be categorically divided into trajectory optimisers and sampling-based methods. When planning using occupancy maps, the…
Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) is a popular variational inference algorithm which simulates an interacting particle system to approximately sample from a target distribution, with impressive empirical performance across various…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) holds as a classical method to build large scale machine learning models over big data. A stochastic gradient is typically calculated from a limited number of samples (known as mini-batch), so it…
Planning for sequential robotics tasks often requires integrated symbolic and geometric reasoning. TAMP algorithms typically solve these problems by performing a tree search over high-level task sequences while checking for kinematic and…
Diffusion models have emerged as powerful learned priors for solving inverse problems. However, current iterative solving approaches which alternate between diffusion sampling and data consistency steps typically require hundreds or…
The Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm is a deterministic particle method for sampling. However, a mean-field analysis reveals that the gradient flow corresponding to the SVGD algorithm (i.e., the Stein Variational Gradient…
Optimization algorithms are pivotal in advancing various scientific and industrial fields but often encounter obstacles such as trapping in local minima, saddle points, and plateaus (flat regions), which makes the convergence to reasonable…
A central challenge in Bayesian inference is efficiently approximating posterior distributions. Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) is a popular variational inference method which transports a set of particles to approximate a target…
In this project, we propose a Variational Inference algorithm to approximate posterior distributions. Building on prior methods, we develop the Gradient-Steered Stein Variational Gradient Descent (G-SVGD) approach. This method introduces a…