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Popular deterministic approximations of posterior distributions from, e.g. the Laplace method, variational Bayes and expectation-propagation, generally rely on symmetric approximating families, often taken to be Gaussian. This choice…
Many approximate Bayesian inference methods assume a particular parametric form for approximating the posterior distribution. A multivariate Gaussian distribution provides a convenient density for such approaches; examples include the…
In Bayesian inference, making deductions about a parameter of interest requires one to sample from or compute an integral against a posterior distribution. A popular method to make these computations cheaper in high-dimensional settings is…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods remain the mainstay of Bayesian estimation of structural equation models (SEM), though they often incur a high computational cost. We present a bespoke approximate Bayesian approach to SEM, drawing on…
Logistic Gaussian process (LGP) priors provide a flexible alternative for modelling unknown densities. The smoothness properties of the density estimates can be controlled through the prior covariance structure of the LGP, but the challenge…
Statistical applications often involve the calculation of intractable multidimensional integrals. The Laplace formula is widely used to approximate such integrals. However, in high-dimensional or small sample size problems, the shape of the…
Laplace approximations are a standard tool for computationally efficient inference in latent Gaussian models, but they fail for quantile regression with the asymmetric Laplace likelihood because the observed Hessian vanishes almost…
Penalized regression methods, such as $L_1$ regularization, are routinely used in high-dimensional applications, and there is a rich literature on optimality properties under sparsity assumptions. In the Bayesian paradigm, sparsity is…
The Laplace approximation has been one of the workhorses of Bayesian inference. It often delivers good approximations in practice despite the fact that it does not strictly take into account where the volume of posterior density lies.…
The Bayesian approach to inverse problems provides a rigorous framework for the incorporation and quantification of uncertainties in measurements, parameters and models. We are interested in designing numerical methods which are robust…
Gaussian approximations are routinely employed in Bayesian statistics to ease inference when the target posterior is intractable. Although these approximations are asymptotically justified by Bernstein-von Mises type results, in practice…
Density estimation represents one of the most successful applications of Bayesian nonparametrics. In particular, Dirichlet process mixtures of normals are the gold standard for density estimation and their asymptotic properties have been…
We focus on Bayesian inverse problems with Gaussian likelihood, linear forward model, and priors that can be formulated as a Gaussian mixture. Such a mixture is expressed as an integral of Gaussian density functions weighted by a mixing…
Laplace approximation is a very useful tool in Bayesian inference and it claims a nearly Gaussian behavior of the posterior. \cite{SpLaplace2022} established some rather accurate finite sample results about the quality of Laplace…
The Laplace approximation is an old, but frequently used method to approximate integrals for Bayesian calculations. In this paper we develop an extension of the Laplace approximation, by applying it iteratively to the residual, i.e., the…
Various computational challenges arise when applying Bayesian inference approaches to complex hierarchical models. Sampling-based inference methods, such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo strategies, are renowned for providing accurate results…
In a Bayesian inverse problem setting, the solution consists of a posterior measure obtained by combining prior belief, information about the forward operator, and noisy observational data. This measure is most often given in terms of a…
This paper introduces a Laplace approximation to Bayesian inference in Dirichlet regression models, which can be used to analyze a set of variables on a simplex exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the…
Laplace's method approximates a target density with a Gaussian distribution at its mode. It is computationally efficient and asymptotically exact for Bayesian inference due to the Bernstein-von Mises theorem, but for complex targets and…
Ordinary differential equations are arguably the most popular and useful mathematical tool for describing physical and biological processes in the real world. Often, these physical and biological processes are observed with errors, in which…