Statistical inference methods are fundamentally important in machine learning. Most state-of-the-art inference algorithms are variants of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or variational inference (VI). However, both methods struggle with limitations in practice: MCMC methods can be computationally demanding; VI methods …
Paper proposes first unlearning algorithm for MCMC models.
problem Enforcing right to be forgotten in AI causes high costs for data deletion.
method Converts MCMC unlearning to explicit optimization problem, designs MCMC influence function.
result MCMC unlearning does not compromise generalizability of models.
Adaptive workflow combines fast amortized inference with MCMC for many datasets.
problem Trade-off between computational speed and sampling accuracy in Bayesian inference.
method Adaptive workflow integrating amortized inference and MCMC with principled diagnostics.
result Efficiency gains with high posterior quality on tens of thousands of datasets.
Proposes MIVI for efficient posterior estimation and design of MCMC transitions.
problem Efficiently estimating posterior distributions in constrained time.
method Combines variational inference and MCMC with a variational distribution and optimized Markov chain.
result Optimized Markov chain improves variational distribution and vice versa, leading to more accurate posteriors.
Unified framework for MCMC and machine learning problems.
problem Intersection of MCMC and machine learning problems.
method Unified framework integrating various MCMC and machine learning techniques.
result Translation and generalization of theory and methods.
MetFlow combines MCMC and VI efficiently for better inference.
problem Combining MCMC and VI for efficient inference.
method Introduces MetFlow, a novel MCMC algorithm with Normalizing Flows, and a new method to combine it with VI.
result MetFlow produces expressive variational families with improved computational efficiency.
Two popular classes of methods for approximate inference are Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and variational inference. MCMC tends to be accurate if run for a long enough time, while variational inference tends to give better approximations at shorter time horizons. However, the amount of time needed for MCMC to exceed…
Normalized random measures (NRMs) provide a broad class of discrete random measures that are often used as priors for Bayesian nonparametric models. Dirichlet process is a well-known example of NRMs. Most of posterior inference methods for NRM mixture models rely on MCMC methods since they are easy to implement and the…
New method reduces computational cost for Bayesian inference.
problem High computational cost in Bayesian inference.
method Coreset MCMC, a Markov chain targeting coreset posterior.
result Coreset MCMC provides higher quality posterior approximations and reduced computational cost.
Bayesian neural networks tutorial via MCMC in Python.
problem Bayesian inference for parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification in deep learning models.
method MCMC sampling methods to implement Bayesian inference, including advanced proposal distributions.
result Challenges in sampling multi-modal posterior distributions for Bayesian neural networks.
We propose a novel approximate inference algorithm that approximates a target distribution by amortising the dynamics of a user-selected MCMC sampler. The idea is to initialise MCMC using samples from an approximation network, apply the MCMC operator to improve these samples, and finally use the samples to update the a…
Develops variational inference for Neyman-Scott processes for faster sampling.
problem Slow mixing time in MCMC for posterior sampling in Neyman-Scott processes.
method Variational inference algorithm for Neyman-Scott processes, minimizing KL divergence.
result Achieves better prediction performance than MCMC with limited computational time.
PriorCVAE uses deep generative models to infer hyperparameters in MCMC.
problem Losing hyperparameter information in GP prior inference.
method Conditioning VAE on hyperparameters to encode and estimate them during inference.
result PriorCVAE enables efficient and distinct inference of hyperparameters.
The hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP) has become an important Bayesian nonparametric model for grouped data, such as document collections. The HDP is used to construct a flexible mixed-membership model where the number of components is determined by the data. As for most Bayesian nonparametric models, exact posterio…
Stochastic EM with biased MCMC improves inference stability.
problem Intractable E-step in EM algorithm.
method Stochastic approximation with biased MCMC.
result ULA is more stable and sometimes faster than MALA.
This project compares MCMC and VI for Bayesian PMF on MovieLens.
problem Intractable posterior distribution in PMF.
method Employed MCMC and VI for Bayesian inference on MovieLens.
result VI converges faster, MCMC provides more accurate estimates.
We develop a method to combine Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and variational inference (VI), leveraging the advantages of both inference approaches. Specifically, we improve the variational distribution by running a few MCMC steps. To make inference tractable, we introduce the variational contrastive divergence (VCD)…
We introduce a novel approach for parallelizing MCMC inference in models with spatially determined conditional independence relationships, for which existing techniques exploiting graphical model structure are not applicable. Our approach is motivated by a model of seismic events and signals, where events detected in d…
A new method combines variational inference and MCMC for efficient data subsampling.
problem Combining variational inference and MCMC for data subsampling.
method Introduces a surrogate likelihood to learn jointly with variational parameters.
result Permits an intuitive trade-off between inference fidelity and computational cost.
New MCMC method estimates differential privacy from multiple MIAs without worst-case assumptions.
problem Bayesian estimation of differential privacy from membership inference attacks.
method Bayesian estimation via MCMC algorithm (MCMC-DP-Est).
result More cautious privacy analysis with joint estimation of MIA strengths and privacy parameter.
The paper develops methods for high-dimensional inference in Markov random fields.
problem Statistical inference for high-dimensional Markov random fields.
method Markov Chain Monte Carlo Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MCMC-MLE) with Elastic-net regularization.
result The proposed methods achieve ℓ1-consistency and false discovery rate control. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are generally regarded as the gold standard technique for Bayesian inference. They are theoretically well-understood and conceptually simple to apply in practice. The drawback of MCMC is that in general performing exact inference requires all of the data to be processed at eac…
Paper assesses adversarial robustness of MCMC and BDK methods for deep Bayesian networks.
problem Assessing adversarial robustness of deep neural networks under MCMC and BDK approximations.
method Characterizes robustness of MCMC and BDK methods to FGSM and PGD attacks.
result Full MCMC-based inference shows excellent robustness, outperforming standard point estimation.
This work proposes new methods for variational inference using gradient flows on Gaussian measures.
problem Developing algorithmic guarantees for variational inference.
method Proposes principled methods for variational inference using gradient flows on the Bures--Wasserstein space of Gaussian measures.
result Strong theoretical guarantees for log-concave posteriors.
EG-LF-MCMC infers posterior densities without likelihoods.
problem Posterior inference for models with intractable likelihoods.
method Two-phase approach: error recording and classification for MCMC.
result EG-LF-MCMC provides approximate posterior densities efficiently.
Eryn is a versatile MCMC package for Bayesian inference.
problem Bayesian inference for parameter estimation and model selection.
method Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm integrated into a user-friendly toolbox.
result Eryn can handle a wide range of Bayesian inference problems, from simple to complex.
Unified framework for MCMC algorithms simplifies their design and application.
problem Diverse MCMC algorithms with varying principles and applications.
method Involutive MCMC (iMCMC) framework unifying MCMC approaches.
result Unified view of MCMC algorithms facilitates the development of new and more efficient algorithms.
We propose a stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) algorithm for scalable inference in mixed-membership stochastic blockmodels (MMSB). Our algorithm is based on the stochastic gradient Riemannian Langevin sampler and achieves both faster speed and higher accuracy at every iteration than the current sta…
This paper studies the fundamental problem of learning deep generative models that consist of multiple layers of latent variables organized in top-down architectures. Such models have high expressivity and allow for learning hierarchical representations. Learning such a generative model requires inferring the latent va…
Gradient-based MCMC for discrete spaces improves sampling performance.
problem Sampling in discrete spaces using traditional methods is challenging.
method Introduced new discrete Metropolis-Hastings samplers inspired by MALA, with a novel preconditioning technique.
result Demonstrated strong empirical performance across various challenging sampling problems.
New couplings improve understanding of molecular dynamics convergence.
problem Understanding convergence of Andersen dynamics in high dimensions.
method Presented couplings to obtain sharp convergence bounds in the Wasserstein sense.
result Sharp convergence bounds in the Wasserstein sense without global convexity.
The rapid development of computing power and efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation algorithms have revolutionized Bayesian statistics, making it a highly practical inference method in applied work. However, MCMC algorithms tend to be computationally demanding, and are particularly slow for large datasets…
Approximate inference algorithm is one of the fundamental research fields in machine learning. The two dominant theoretical inference frameworks in machine learning are variational inference (VI) and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). However, because of the fundamental limitation in the theory, it is very challenging to…
Develops a new MCMC-based Wishart prior for Gaussian Process covariance matrix.
problem Difficult inference for multivariate Gaussian Processes with multiple lengthscale parameters.
method Introduces a self-assembled Wishart prior and uses MCMC for Bayesian inference on kernel hyperparameters.
result Demonstrates the effectiveness of the new prior in GP-based learning with empirical results.
A new method combines MCMC results to avoid failures in parallel computing.
problem Parallel MCMC's sensitivity to subposterior sampling issues leads to failures.
method Parallel Active Inference (PAI) uses Gaussian Process (GP) surrogate modeling and active learning.
result PAI successfully combines MCMC results where previous methods fail.
Stochastic gradient MCMC (SG-MCMC) algorithms have proven useful in scaling Bayesian inference to large datasets under an assumption of i.i.d data. We instead develop an SG-MCMC algorithm to learn the parameters of hidden Markov models (HMMs) for time-dependent data. There are two challenges to applying SG-MCMC in this…
Improved Bayesian inference for neuronal ensemble inference reduces computational cost.
problem Efficient inference of neuronal ensembles from activity data.
method Modified MCMC algorithm with simulated annealing for hyperparameter control.
result Our method reduces computational cost while maintaining or improving inference accuracy.
Stein variational gradient descent improves inference in Gaussian process models.
problem Inference in Gaussian process models with non-Gaussian likelihoods and large data volumes is computationally intensive and inaccurate with traditional methods.
method Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) for non-parametric inference.
result SVGD monotonically decreases the Kullback-Leibler divergence from the sampling distribution to the true posterior.
Probabilistic models are conceptually powerful tools for finding structure in data, but their practical effectiveness is often limited by our ability to perform inference in them. Exact inference is frequently intractable, so approximate inference is often performed using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). To achieve the…
It is known that the Langevin dynamics used in MCMC is the gradient flow of the KL divergence on the Wasserstein space, which helps convergence analysis and inspires recent particle-based variational inference methods (ParVIs). But no more MCMC dynamics is understood in this way. In this work, by developing novel conce…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is one of the main workhorses of probabilistic inference, but it is notoriously hard to measure the quality of approximate posterior samples. This challenge is particularly salient in black box inference methods, which can hide details and obscure inference failures. In this work, we ext…
A novel MCMC method clusters data faster and more accurately.
problem Efficiently clustering large datasets with unknown number of clusters.
method Master/Worker architecture for distributed MCMC inference.
result Significant improvement in clustering accuracy and speed.
A fast MCMC sampler for sparse Bayesian inference.
problem Sparse Bayesian inference problems with high computational cost.
method Asynchronous Gibbs sampler extended with data sub-sampling.
result The Markov chain admits an invariant distribution that recovers the main signal with high probability.
KSD Thinning uses KSD to thin MCMC samples efficiently.
problem Efficiently representing posterior distributions in Bayesian inference.
method KSD Thinning: retains only samples exceeding a KSD threshold.
result Established convergence and complexity tradeoffs for KSD Thinning.
A new variational method speeds up Bayesian phylogenetic inference.
problem Slow and inefficient MCMC methods in Bayesian phylogenetic inference.
method Combining subsplit Bayesian networks with variational inference for efficient tree topology and branch length estimation.
result Variational approach provides competitive performance with significantly fewer iterations.
Study improves Bayesian calibration of mechanical properties using active learning and MCMC.
problem Inference of spatially varying material parameters in computational mechanics.
method Comprehensive comparative study of surrogate models and MCMC algorithms.
result Active learning strategy outperforms a priori trained models in posterior estimation.
MCMC complexity matches optimization for large n and d.
problem Lack of theoretical understanding of MCMC complexity for large n and d. method Comparison of MCMC, LA, and VI complexities for linear, logistic, and Poisson regression.
result MCMC complexity matches optimization complexity for n≳d. New method for MCMC models without perfect or sequential samplers.
problem Bayesian inference for complex models with intractable terms.
method Utilizes tractable independence model to construct unbiased estimates.
result Scalable method for high-dimensional models.