Related papers: Analytic Error Estimates
Given an intractable distribution $p$, the problem of variational inference (VI) is to find the best approximation from some more tractable family $Q$. Commonly, one chooses $Q$ to be a family of factorized distributions (i.e., the…
Variational Bayes (VB) is rapidly becoming a popular tool for Bayesian inference in statistical modeling. However, the existing VB algorithms are restricted to cases where the likelihood is tractable, which precludes the use of VB in many…
Latent variable models (LVMs) are commonly used in psychology and increasingly used for analyzing brain imaging data. Such studies typically involve a small number of participants (n<100), where standard asymptotic results often fail to…
Measurement uncertainty relations are lower bounds on the errors of any approximate joint measurement of two or more quantum observables. The aim of this paper is to provide methods to compute optimal bounds of this type. The basic method…
Probabilistic power flow (PPF) is essential for quantifying operational uncertainty in modern distribution systems with high penetration of renewable generation and flexible loads. Conventional PPF methods primarily rely on Monte Carlo (MC)…
Most applications of Bayesian Inference for parameter estimation and model selection in astrophysics involve the use of Monte Carlo techniques such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and nested sampling. However, these techniques are time…
Margin has played an important role on the design and analysis of learning algorithms during the past years, mostly working with the maximization of the minimum margin. Recent years have witnessed the increasing empirical studies on the…
We conduct non-asymptotic analysis on the mean-field variational inference for approximating posterior distributions in complex Bayesian models that may involve latent variables. We show that the mean-field approximation to the posterior…
This paper analyzes the approximate control variate (ACV) approach to multifidelity uncertainty quantification in the case where weighted estimators are combined to form the components of the ACV. The weighted estimators enable one to…
Mean Field Variational Bayes (MFVB) is a popular posterior approximation method due to its fast runtime on large-scale data sets. However, it is well known that a major failing of MFVB is its (sometimes severe) underestimates of the…
Variational Bayes (VB) is a recent approximate method for Bayesian inference. It has the merit of being a fast and scalable alternative to Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) but its approximation error is often unknown. In this paper, we…
Calibration$\unicode{x2014}$the problem of ensuring that predicted probabilities align with observed class frequencies$\unicode{x2014}$is a basic desideratum for reliable prediction with machine learning systems. Calibration error is…
Multivariate probabilistic time series forecasts are commonly evaluated via proper scoring rules, i.e., functions that are minimal in expectation for the ground-truth distribution. However, this property is not sufficient to guarantee good…
This short communication uses a simple experiment to show that fitting to a power law distribution by using graphical methods based on linear fit on the log-log scale is biased and inaccurate. It shows that using maximum likelihood…
Bayesian inference for high-dimensional inverse problems is computationally costly and requires selecting a suitable prior distribution. Amortized variational inference addresses these challenges via a neural network that approximates the…
We consider the problem of estimating a multivariate function $f_0$ of bounded variation (BV), from noisy observations $y_i = f_0(x_i) + z_i$ made at random design points $x_i \in \mathbb{R}^d$, $i=1,\ldots,n$. We study an estimator that…
In this paper, we consider the problem of parametric empirical Bayes estimation of an i.i.d. prior in high-dimensional Bayesian linear regression, with random design. We obtain the asymptotic distribution of the variational Empirical Bayes…
We develop a general mathematical framework for variational problems where the unknown function assumes values in the space of probability measures on some metric space. We study weak and strong topologies and define a total variation…
Weighted empirical risk minimization is a common approach to prediction under distribution drift. This article studies its out-of-sample prediction error under nonstationarity. We provide a general decomposition of the excess risk into a…
This article discusses the determination of asymmetries. We consider a sample of events consisting of a peak of signal events on top of some background events. Both signal and background have an unknown asymmetry, e.g. a spin or…