New SMC samplers improve stochastic optimisation efficiency.
problem Optimizing functions with intractable gradients in machine learning and statistics.
method Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) samplers for stochastic optimisation.
result Significant computational gains achieved with SMC approximations.
A new method learns latent variable updates directly, not approximating the posterior.
problem Intractable maximum-likelihood learning for complex latent-variable models.
method Amortised learning using wake-sleep Monte-Carlo strategy.
result Demonstrated effectiveness on various complex models.
New algorithm improves latent variable model estimation.
problem Estimating parameters in latent variable models.
method Jarzynski-adjusted Langevin algorithm (JALA) for SMC methods.
result JALA-EM provides maximum marginal likelihood estimate.
New MMM captures hierarchical marketing effects and sign restrictions.
problem Measuring effectiveness of marketing activities with hierarchical structure and sign constraints.
method Proposes a constrained maximum likelihood approach using Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm.
result Demonstrates superior performance on real datasets compared to multi-stage methods.
Quantum method improves CVaR evaluation under correlated fields.
problem Accurately evaluating CVaR in high-dimensional, correlated material uncertainty.
method Quantum-enhanced inference framework using stabilized IQAE.
result Quantum method achieves lower oracle complexity than classical methods.
We approximate differential entropy for efficient Bayesian experimental design.
problem Efficiently estimating expected information gain in large-scale inference problems.
method Approximate differential entropy using Monte Carlo or quasi-Monte Carlo surrogates.
result Our approach achieves comparable or better convergence rates than state-of-the-art methods.
In this paper we present nonparametric estimators for coefficients in stochastic differential equation if the data are described by independent, identically distributed random variables. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear ill-posed operator equation with a deterministic forward operator described by the Fokker-Pl…
In this short note we provide an unbiased multilevel Monte Carlo estimator of the log marginal likelihood and discuss its application to variational Bayes.
This work investigates training infinite mixtures with maximum likelihood for improved uncertainty quantification.
problem Improving uncertainty quantification in neural networks.
method Investigates training infinite mixtures with maximum likelihood instead of variational inference.
result The proposed method leads to stochastic networks with increased predictive variance, improved robustness, and higher entropy on out-of-distribution data.
New ranking models for time series data using GARCH-type approach.
problem Handling time series of ranking data.
method Developed ranking GARCH models based on Mallows distribution and maximum likelihood estimation.
result The proposed models capture temporal dynamics of rankings effectively.
This paper reviews various sampling methods from statistics and machine learning.
problem Addressing sampling methods in statistics and machine learning.
method Explains and reviews simple random sampling, bootstrapping, stratified sampling, cluster sampling, multistage sampling, network sampling, snowball sampling, and sampling from cumulative distribution function.
result Summarizes characteristics, pros, and cons of different sampling methods.
R package for Bayesian empirical likelihood sampling using HMC.
problem Sampling from non-convex Bayesian empirical likelihood posteriors.
method Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm for numerical integration.
result Efficient HMC sampling from BayesEL posteriors.
We derive a statistical model for estimation of a dendrogram from single linkage hierarchical clustering (SLHC) that takes account of uncertainty through noise or corruption in the measurements of separation of data. Our focus is on just the estimation of the hierarchy of partitions afforded by the dendrogram, rather t…
A new method for state estimation in state-space models using incomplete data.
problem State estimation in nonlinear state-space models with incomplete observations.
method Statistical analysis of incomplete observations, score function, observed information matrices, EM-gradient-particle filtering.
result Maximum likelihood estimation of state-vector with explicit form of observed information matrix.
The methods of statistical physics are widely used for modelling complex networks. Building on the recently proposed Equilibrium Expectation approach, we derive a simple and efficient algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of parameters of exponential family distributions - a family of statistical models, th…
EBMs are flexible but hard to train; this paper explains methods.
problem Training Energy-Based Models is difficult due to the unknown normalizing constant.
method Explains MCMC, SM, and NCE for training EBMs, highlighting connections.
result Provides a friendly introduction to modern EBM training methods.
In this paper we formulate the nonnegative matrix factorisation (NMF) problem as a maximum likelihood estimation problem for hidden Markov models and propose online expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithms to estimate the NMF and the other unknown static parameters. We also propose a sequential Monte Carlo approximatio…
TTERGM models improve social network predictions by incorporating triadic relationships.
problem Lack of models capturing triadic relationships and social learning theories in temporal network data.
method Introduced TTERGM, a generative model that includes triadic relationships and social learning theory as additional probability distributions. Parameters are estimated via Monte Carlo maximum likelihood.
result TTERGM achieves improved accuracy and fidelity compared to existing models on social network data.
Direct neural ratio estimator for likelihood-free inference.
problem Efficient likelihood estimation for complex models.
method Amortized likelihood ratio estimation using neural networks.
result DNRE often outperforms previous ratio estimators.
A new method normalizes EBM training by introducing a learnable parameter.
problem Training energy-based models with maximum likelihood is challenging due to intractable normalisation constants.
method Proposes a self-normalised log-likelihood (SNL) objective that introduces a learnable parameter representing the normalisation constant.
result The SNL objective is a lower bound of the log-likelihood and can be directly optimised using stochastic gradient techniques.
Improves inference-time alignment for diffusion models without updating weights.
problem Aligning diffusion models without updating weights for high-reward outputs.
method Trust-Region Iterative Twisted Sequential Monte Carlo (TRI-TSMC) for variance reduction and efficiency.
result Improves primary alignment objectives on text generation tasks.
Two new deterministic offspring selection methods reduce statistical distance in SMC and pMCMC.
problem Improving the performance of resampling in SMC methods.
method Proposes two deterministic offspring selection methods to minimize KL divergence and TV distance.
result Our methods outperform or match state-of-the-art resampling schemes on benchmarks.
New method estimates animal density using acoustic data, accounting for unknown call identities.
problem Estimating animal density or call density from acoustic data with unknown call identities.
method Monte Carlo Expectation-Maximization (MCEM) method to resolve unknown call identities.
result Estimates are within 15% of expert-constructed estimates and incorporate uncertainty about call identities.
This study compares MC and QMC methods for likelihood functions.
problem Approximating the normalizing constant of posterior distributions and marginal likelihoods.
method Characterizes the integration error of MC and QMC methods for likelihood functions.
result QMC outperforms MC under certain conditions, especially in high dimensions.
We consider the problem of sparse estimation in a factor analysis model. A traditional estimation procedure in use is the following two-step approach: the model is estimated by maximum likelihood method and then a rotation technique is utilized to find sparse factor loadings. However, the maximum likelihood estimates c…
Adapts Monte Carlo method to price π-options related to maximum drawdown.
problem Pricing π-options in volatile market conditions.
method Monte Carlo algorithm with simulated price tree.
result Algorithm produces bounds converging to true price with tree depth.
Recent work in variational inference (VI) uses ideas from Monte Carlo estimation to tighten the lower bounds on the log-likelihood that are used as objectives. However, there is no systematic understanding of how optimizing different objectives relates to approximating the posterior distribution. Developing such a conn…
This paper presents a method for efficient density estimation in nonlinear systems.
problem Accurate representation of non-Gaussian distributions in nonlinear dynamical systems is challenging.
method Uses Seminonparametric (SNP) densities with probabilists' Hermite polynomial basis and Monte Carlo approximation for maximum likelihood estimation.
result Demonstrates that the method can accurately capture non-Gaussian density structure and compute quantiles using fewer samples than raw Monte Carlo.
Inference is typically intractable in high-treewidth undirected graphical models, making maximum likelihood learning a challenge. One way to overcome this is to restrict parameters to a tractable set, most typically the set of tree-structured parameters. This paper explores an alternative notion of a tractable set, nam…
We present novel understandings of the Gamma-Poisson (GaP) model, a probabilistic matrix factorization model for count data. We show that GaP can be rewritten free of the score/activation matrix. This gives us new insights about the estimation of the topic/dictionary matrix by maximum marginal likelihood estimation. In…
Bayesian inference for expensive likelihoods using Langevin Monte Carlo with NF.
problem Sampling from complex posterior distributions with expensive likelihoods.
method Deterministic Langevin equation with NF gradient, Metropolis-Hastings updates.
result Competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Unbiased gradient estimation improves VAE performance.
problem Training VAEs via maximum likelihood is difficult due to intractable integrals.
method Introduced unbiased estimators of the log-likelihood gradient using coupled Markov chains.
result Unbiased estimators lead to better predictive performance in VAEs.
New SMC sampler improves diffusion model sampling efficiency.
problem Sampling generative diffusion models efficiently.
method Constructs correlated observation paths and designs a sampler.
result Improved statistical efficiency, especially under outlier conditions.
KIPLMC methods improve statistical inference in latent variable models.
problem Statistical inference in latent variable models.
method Joint diffusion process in parameter and latent variable spaces, with two explicit discretizations.
result KIPLMC methods achieve accelerated convergence rates in Wasserstein-2 distance.
Adaptive LASSO improves model selection for functional geostatistical data.
problem Modeling georeferenced data with spatiotemporal dynamics and functional coefficients.
method Penalized maximum likelihood estimator with adaptive LASSO penalty for simultaneous selection of spline basis functions and regressors.
result The penalized estimator outperforms the unpenalized estimator in all scenarios tested.
A new method predicts future paths using a Monte-Carlo approach.
problem Predicting future financial paths given historical data.
method Path Shadowing Monte-Carlo method using maximum entropy model.
result Yields state-of-the-art predictions for future volatility and option smiles.
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a popular and successful general-purpose tool for Bayesian inference. However, MCMC cannot be practically applied to large data sets because of the prohibitive cost of evaluating every likelihood term at every iteration. Here we present Firefly Monte Carlo (FlyMC) an auxiliary variabl…
A joint conditional autoregressive expectile and Expected Shortfall framework is proposed. The framework is extended through incorporating a measurement equation which models the contemporaneous dependence between the realized measures and the latent conditional expectile. Nonlinear threshold specification is further i…
There are many models, often called unnormalized models, whose normalizing constants are not calculated in closed form. Maximum likelihood estimation is not directly applicable to unnormalized models. Score matching, contrastive divergence method, pseudo-likelihood, Monte Carlo maximum likelihood, and noise contrastive…
New MCFOs improve learning generative models and time series inference.
problem Challenges in learning generative models and inferring latent trajectories for time series.
method Proposed Monte Carlo filtering objectives (MCFOs) for joint learning and adaptive proposals.
result MCFOs lead to efficient and stable model learning and explain data well.
Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) methods can be used to sample from posterior distributions when the likelihood function is unavailable or intractable, as is often the case in biological systems. ABC methods suffer from inefficient particle proposals in high dimensions, and subjectivity in the choice of summary s…
Computing the marginal likelihood (ML) of a model requires marginalizing out all of the parameters and latent variables, a difficult high-dimensional summation or integration problem. To make matters worse, it is often hard to measure the accuracy of one's ML estimates. We present bidirectional Monte Carlo, a technique…
VBMC+VIQR outperforms noisy models in Bayesian inference.
problem Bayesian inference with noisy likelihoods in complex models.
method Gaussian process surrogates, expected information gain, variational interquantile range.
result VBMC+VIQR achieves state-of-the-art performance in noisy inference benchmarks.
A new transformer model uses Monte Carlo methods for sequence prediction.
problem Predicting sequences from observations with uncertainty.
method Integrates Monte Carlo methods into a transformer architecture to model stochastic sequences.
result Proposes a generative model with predictive distributions.
Study Langevin Monte Carlo for sampling non-log-concave distributions.
problem Sampling from non-log-concave distributions, especially Gaussian mixtures.
method Discretizations of overdamped Langevin diffusions.
result Numerical simulations compare Langevin Monte Carlo algorithms' performance.
New insights into variational inference using Monte Carlo estimates.
problem Improving variational bounds in latent variable models.
method Analyzing properties of Monte Carlo estimates and their impact on variational gaps.
result Negative correlation reduces variational gaps, contrary to intuition.
We present a novel technique for tailoring Bayesian quadrature (BQ) to model selection. The state-of-the-art for comparing the evidence of multiple models relies on Monte Carlo methods, which converge slowly and are unreliable for computationally expensive models. Previous research has shown that BQ offers sample effic…
It is a well known fact that recovery rates tend to go down when the number of defaults goes up in economic downturns. We demonstrate how the loss given default model with the default and recovery dependent via the latent systematic risk factor can be estimated using Bayesian inference methodology and Markov chain Mont…