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Although numerous algorithms have been proposed to solve the categorical data clustering problem, how to access the statistical significance of a set of categorical clusters remains unaddressed. To fulfill this void, we employ the…
In this review, we address the use of Monte Carlo methods for approximating definite integrals of the form $Z = \int L(x) d P(x)$, where $L$ is a target function (often a likelihood) and $P$ a finite measure. We present vertical-likelihood…
We describe Monte Carlo methods for estimating lower envelopes of expectations of real random variables. We prove that the estimation bias is negative and that its absolute value shrinks with increasing sample size. We discuss fairly…
This paper introduces to readers the new concept and methodology of confidence distribution and the modern-day distributional inference in statistics. This discussion should be of interest to people who would like to go into the depth of…
Reinforcement learning constantly deals with hard integrals, for example when computing expectations in policy evaluation and policy iteration. These integrals are rarely analytically solvable and typically estimated with the Monte Carlo…
Models implicitly defined through a random simulator of a process have become widely used in scientific and industrial applications in recent years. However, simulation-based inference methods for such implicit models, like approximate…
Likelihood-free methods, such as approximate Bayesian computation, are powerful tools for practical inference problems with intractable likelihood functions. Markov chain Monte Carlo and sequential Monte Carlo variants of approximate…
With origins in game theory, probabilistic values like Shapley values, Banzhaf values, and semi-values have emerged as a central tool in explainable AI. They are used for feature attribution, data attribution, data valuation, and more.…
The implementation and reliability of a quadratic diffusion Monte Carlo method for the study of ground-state properties of atoms are discussed. We show in the simple yet non-trivial calculation of the binding energy of the Li atom that the…
Monte Carlo methods are used to approximate the means, $\mu$, of random variables $Y$, whose distributions are not known explicitly. The key idea is that the average of a random sample, $Y_1, ..., Y_n$, tends to $\mu$ as $n$ tends to…
Parameter estimation, statistical tests and confidence sets are the cornerstones of classical statistics that allow scientists to make inferences about the underlying process that generated the observed data. A key question is whether one…
Adaptive Monte Carlo methods are very efficient techniques designed to tune simulation estimators on-line. In this work, we present an alternative to stochastic approximation to tune the optimal change of measure in the context of…
In exploratory factor analysis, model parameters are usually estimated by maximum likelihood method. The maximum likelihood estimate is obtained by solving a complicated multivariate algebraic equation. Since the solution to the equation is…
Counting experiments often rely on Monte Carlo simulations for predictions of Poisson expectations. The accompanying uncertainty from the finite Monte Carlo sample size can be incorporated into parameter estimation by modifying the Poisson…
Several uncertainty estimation methods have been recently proposed for machine translation evaluation. While these methods can provide a useful indication of when not to trust model predictions, we show in this paper that the majority of…
This paper introduces and reviews some of the principles and methods used in Bayesian reliability. It specifically discusses methods used in the analysis of success/no-success data and then reminds the reader of a simple Monte Carlo…
Transformation-based learning has been successfully employed to solve many natural language processing problems. It has many positive features, but one drawback is that it does not provide estimates of class membership probabilities. In…
Intuitively, unfamiliarity should lead to lack of confidence. In reality, current algorithms often make highly confident yet wrong predictions when faced with relevant but unfamiliar examples. A classifier we trained to recognize gender is…
The following zero-sum game between nature and a statistician blends Bayesian methods with frequentist methods such as p-values and confidence intervals. Nature chooses a posterior distribution consistent with a set of possible priors. At…
Probability Theory and Statistics are two of the most useful mathematical fields, and also two of the most difficult to learn. In other science fields, as Physics, experimentation is an useful tool to develop students intuition, but the…