Related papers: The birthday problem and Markov chain Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo algorithms simulate some prescribed number of samples, taking some random real time to complete the computations necessary. This work considers the converse: to impose a real-time budget on the computation, which results in the…
We formulate some simple conditions under which a Markov chain may be approximated by the solution to a differential equation, with quantifiable error probabilities. The role of a choice of coordinate functions for the Markov chain is…
This paper proposes an eigenvalue-based small-sample approximation of the celebrated Markov Chain Monte Carlo that delivers an invariant steady-state distribution that is consistent with traditional Monte Carlo methods. The proposed…
There are known expressions to calculate the moments of the first passage time in Markov chains. Nevertheless, it is commonly forgotten that in most applications the parameters of the Markov chain are constructed using estimates based upon…
We present a geometrically enhanced Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler for networks based on a discrete curvature measure defined on graphs. Specifically, we incorporate the concept of graph Forman curvature into sampling procedures on both…
We consider the problem of uniformly generating a spanning tree, of a connected undirected graph. This process is useful to compute statistics, namely for phylogenetic trees. We describe a Markov chain for producing these trees. For cycle…
We consider an elementary model for self-organised criticality, the activated random walk on the complete graph. We introduce a discrete time Markov chain as follows. At each time step, we add an active particle at a random vertex and let…
Random walks (or Markov chains) are models extensively used in theoretical computer science. Several tools, including analysis of quantities such as hitting and mixing times, are helpful for devising randomized algorithms. A notable example…
A simple way to sample a uniform triangulation of the sphere with a fixed number $n$ of vertices is a Monte-Carlo method: we start from an arbitrary triangulation and flip repeatedly a uniformly chosen edge. We give a lower bound in…
We show bounds on total variation and $L^{\infty}$ mixing times, spectral gap and magnitudes of the complex valued eigenvalues of a general (non-reversible non-lazy) Markov chain with a minor expansion property. This leads to the first…
Random walks are a fundamental model in applied mathematics and are a common example of a Markov chain. The limiting stationary distribution of the Markov chain represents the fraction of the time spent in each state during the stochastic…
Vertex connectivity a classic extensively-studied problem. Given an integer $k$, its goal is to decide if an $n$-node $m$-edge graph can be disconnected by removing $k$ vertices. Although a linear-time algorithm was postulated since 1974…
Statisticians often use Monte Carlo methods to approximate probability distributions, primarily with Markov chain Monte Carlo and importance sampling. Sequential Monte Carlo samplers are a class of algorithms that combine both techniques to…
The Monte Carlo within Metropolis (MCwM) algorithm, interpreted as a perturbed Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, provides an approach for approximate sampling when the target distribution is intractable. Assuming the unperturbed Markov…
In networking applications, one often wishes to obtain estimates about the number of objects at different parts of the network (e.g., the number of cars at an intersection of a road network or the number of packets expected to reach a node…
In most sampling algorithms, including Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, transition rates between states correspond to the probability of making a transition in a single time step, and are constrained to be less than or equal to 1. We derive a…
In many situations it is important to be able to propose $N$ independent realizations of a given distribution law. We propose a strategy for making $N$ parallel Monte Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC) interact in order to get an approximation of…
Recently there has been much interest in graph-based learning, with applications in collaborative filtering for recommender networks, link prediction for social networks and fraud detection. These networks can consist of millions of…
Stochastic billiards can be used for approximate sampling from the boundary of a bounded convex set through the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) paradigm. This paper studies how many steps of the underlying Markov chain are required to get…
This paper offers a personal review of some things we've learned about rates of convergence of Markov chains to their stationary distributions. The main topic is ways of speeding up diffusive behavior. It also points to open problems and…