This paper distills Bayesian posterior expectations for deep neural networks.
problem Improving deep neural network performance and uncertainty quantification.
method Develops a framework for distilling expectations from Bayesian posterior distributions using Monte Carlo samples.
result The framework successfully distills posterior predictive distribution and expected entropy.
This paper argues against using calibration metrics for assessing posterior probabilities and proposes expected proper scoring rules instead.
problem The assessment of posterior probabilities generated by machine learning classifiers using calibration metrics is flawed and should be replaced with expected proper scoring rules.
method The paper reviews proper scoring rules from a practical perspective, explains why expected PSRs are a principled measure of posterior quality, and introduces a new calibration metric called calibration loss.
result Calibration loss is superior to expected calibration error and expected score divergence calibration metrics for assessing posterior probabilities.
Loss-calibrated EP improves Bayesian decision-making by focusing on utility-sensitive posterior approximations.
problem Bayesian decision-making under asymmetric utility functions.
method Loss-calibrated expectation propagation (Loss-EP) that tilts the posterior towards higher utility decisions.
result Loss-EP can capture useful information for decision-making under asymmetric penalties.
DP-SEP privatizes EP by refining a single factor per data point.
problem Private inference of complex models with limited memory.
method Stochastic Expectation Propagation with differential privacy.
result DP-SEP provides better posterior estimates with guaranteed privacy.
QEM uses parallel importance weighting for fast approximate Bayesian inference.
problem Bayesian inference challenges in large models with many observations and latent variables.
method Expectation Maximization (EM) with massively parallel importance weighting.
result QEM is faster and more scalable than RWS and VI.
Posterior sampling-based EI achieves sublinear regret bounds for expensive function optimization.
problem Theoretical analysis of expected improvement (EI) in Bayesian optimization.
method Randomized posterior sampling of EI.
result Achieves sublinear Bayesian cumulative regret bounds.
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms have become powerful tools for Bayesian inference. However, they do not scale well to large-data problems. Divide-and-conquer strategies, which split the data into batches and, for each batch, run independent MCMC algorithms targeting the corresponding subposterior, can spread…
Efficiently designs experiments without integrating posterior distributions.
problem Computational inefficiency in Bayesian experimental design for PDE-based models.
method Likelihood-free approach using ANN to approximate conditional expectation.
result Significant reduction in observation model evaluations.
Study on optimal information acquisition in Kyle model with entropy cost.
problem Optimal information acquisition in Kyle model with entropy cost.
method Continuous signals are optimal, and any signal with a logit posterior distribution yields the same ex-ante value.
result Posterior expected payoff becomes normally distributed as information acquisition cost increases.
Bayesian hierarchical models are increasing popular in economics. When using hierarchical models, it is useful not only to calculate posterior expectations, but also to measure the robustness of these expectations to reasonable alternative prior choices. We use variational Bayes and linear response methods to provide f…
This paper makes two contributions to Bayesian machine learning algorithms. Firstly, we propose stochastic natural gradient expectation propagation (SNEP), a novel alternative to expectation propagation (EP), a popular variational inference algorithm. SNEP is a black box variational algorithm, in that it does not requi…
VAR-GPs solve continual learning by updating posteriors sequentially.
problem Catastrophic forgetting in sequential learning tasks.
method Sparse inducing point approximations and auto-regressive variational distribution.
result VAR-GPs prevent catastrophic forgetting and outperform baselines.
A new method for Bayesian neural networks using probabilistic backpropagation.
problem Approximating posterior distributions in Bayesian neural networks.
method Variational Expectation Propagation (VEP) with probabilistic backpropagation.
result Efficient algorithm for approximate integration over posterior distributions.
A key quantity of interest in Bayesian inference are expectations of functions with respect to a posterior distribution. Markov Chain Monte Carlo is a fundamental tool to consistently compute these expectations via averaging samples drawn from an approximate posterior. However, its feasibility is being challenged in th…
A new ensemble filter uses transport maps and MMD optimization for high-dimensional data assimilation.
problem High-dimensional data assimilation challenges in ensemble filtering.
method Optimized Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) for transport map construction.
result Significant improvement in robustness and posterior approximation.
New EM algorithm improves deep generative network training.
problem Training deep generative networks with complex posterior and likelihood distributions.
method Derive analytical posterior and marginal distributions using CPA property, derive analytical EM algorithm.
result EM training yields higher likelihood than Variational Autoencoders (VAEs).
Implied posterior probability of a given model (say, Support Vector Machines (SVM)) at a point x is an estimate of the class posterior probability pertaining to the class of functions of the model applied to a given dataset. It can be regarded as a score (or estimate) for the true posterior probability, which ca…
Many inference problems involving questions of optimality ask for the maximum or the minimum of a finite set of unknown quantities. This technical report derives the first two posterior moments of the maximum of two correlated Gaussian variables and the first two posterior moments of the two generating variables (corre…
Paper uses averaging from many particle filters to approximate posterior predictive distributions.
problem Approximating posterior predictive distributions efficiently and accurately.
method Particle swarm filter algorithm that averages many particle filter approximations.
result Law of large numbers and central limit theorem support the method's effectiveness.
Paper proposes nested MLMC for SNPE with intractable likelihoods.
problem Estimating posterior distributions from intractable likelihoods.
method Nested MLMC for loss function and gradients, with convergence results.
result Effective methods for approximating complex multimodal posteriors.
New data-dependent priors improve PAC-Bayes bounds.
problem Improving PAC-Bayes bounds for nonconvex learning.
method Using data to learn a conditional expectation of the posterior, given a subset of training data.
result Data-dependent oracle priors lead to stronger PAC-Bayes bounds.
Efficient Reinforcement Learning usually takes advantage of demonstration or good exploration strategy. By applying posterior sampling in model-free RL under the hypothesis of GP, we propose Gaussian Process Posterior Sampling Reinforcement Learning(GPPSTD) algorithm in continuous state space, giving theoretical justif…
The paper introduces a new Wasserstein distance for approximating posteriors in inverse problems.
problem Approximating posterior measures in inverse problems using conditional Wasserstein distances.
method Introduces a conditional Wasserstein distance with restricted couplings and derives its dual.
result Shows that conditional Wasserstein GANs can yield favorable properties for posterior sampling.
In this paper we revisit the weighted likelihood bootstrap, a method that generates samples from an approximate Bayesian posterior of a parametric model. We show that the same method can be derived, without approximation, under a Bayesian nonparametric model with the parameter of interest defined as minimising an expec…
This paper proposes a new algorithm for Gaussian process classification based on posterior linearisation (PL). In PL, a Gaussian approximation to the posterior density is obtained iteratively using the best possible linearisation of the conditional mean of the labels and accounting for the linearisation error. PL has s…
EP method speeds up Bayesian probit regression in high dimensions.
problem Computational challenges in high-dimensional Bayesian probit regression.
method Adapting EP approximation to multivariate Gaussian prior and skew-normal distribution.
result EP routine is computationally feasible in high-dimensional settings.
Bayesian RL tackles uncertainty with deep generative models and sequential samplers.
problem Optimal decision-making in uncertain environments with limited data.
method Bayesian approach using deep generative models and prequential scoring rule for posterior inference. Policy learning via expected Thompson sampling.
result Improves policy learning in high-dimensional parameter spaces and continuous action spaces.
Training deep generative models with maximum likelihood remains a challenge. The typical workaround is to use variational inference (VI) and maximize a lower bound to the log marginal likelihood of the data. Variational auto-encoders (VAEs) adopt this approach. They further amortize the cost of inference by using a rec…
MFVI can overestimate predictive variance compared to the exact posterior
problem MFVI underestimates posterior variance
method Analyzing conjugate Bayesian Linear Regression
result MFVI can overestimate predictive variance compared to the exact posterior
Bayesian decision theory outlines a rigorous framework for making optimal decisions based on maximizing expected utility over a model posterior. However, practitioners often do not have access to the full posterior and resort to approximate inference strategies. In such cases, taking the eventual decision-making task i…
We derive a novel variational expectation maximization approach based on truncated posterior distributions. Truncated distributions are proportional to exact posteriors within subsets of a discrete state space and equal zero otherwise. The treatment of the distributions' subsets as variational parameters distinguishes …
GFlowNet-EM learns complex latent variable models with discrete structures.
problem Challenges in modeling posteriors over discrete compositional latents with expectation-maximization.
method Uses GFlowNets to learn stochastic policies for sampling from complex posterior distributions.
result GFlowNet-EM enables training expressive LVMs with discrete compositional latents.
Combines VI and EP for better Gaussian process hyperparameter learning.
problem Improving hyperparameter learning in Gaussian processes for better performance.
method Hybrid training procedure combining Variational Inference (VI) for posterior inference and Expectation Propagation (EP) for hyperparameter learning.
result The hybrid training procedure provides a better learning objective and generalizes better than using only VI or EP.
Bayesian optimal design of experiments (BODE) has been successful in acquiring information about a quantity of interest (QoI) which depends on a black-box function. BODE is characterized by sequentially querying the function at specific designs selected by an infill-sampling criterion. However, most current BODE method…
Graph Posterior Network improves uncertainty estimation for node classification in interdependent graphs.
problem Uncertainty quantification for non-independent node-level predictions in graphs.
method Derives axioms for expected predictive uncertainty, proposes Graph Posterior Network (GPN) which performs Bayesian posterior updates.
result GPN outperforms existing approaches for uncertainty estimation in semi-supervised node classification.
We quantify predictive uncertainty using the posterior predictive variance.
problem Quantifying uncertainty in predictive models.
method Using the law of total variance, we generate expansions for the posterior predictive variance.
result Identify the main contributors to prediction intervals and quantify term-wise uncertainty.
Binary classification models get more efficient predictive probabilities.
problem Computing predictive probabilities in Bayesian probit models is computationally challenging.
method Use of expectation propagation (EP) to find a closed-form expression for predictive probabilities.
result Closed-form predictive probabilities improve over existing methods.
We give a new proof of the "transfer theorem" underlying adaptive data analysis: that any mechanism for answering adaptively chosen statistical queries that is differentially private and sample-accurate is also accurate out-of-sample. Our new proof is elementary and gives structural insights that we expect will be usef…
New method uses diffusion models to optimize experimental design efficiently.
problem Optimizing experimental design for high-dimensional and complex settings.
method Introduces a pooled posterior distribution and uses diffusion-based samplers for efficient sampling and optimization.
result Extends Bayesian Optimal Experimental Design to practical scenarios.
New method calibrates neural SBI to avoid overconfident posteriors.
problem Overconfident posteriors in SBI due to inaccurate uncertainty quantification.
method Introduces a calibration term into neural model training objective, enabling end-to-end backpropagation.
result Achieves competitive or better coverage and posterior density than existing methods.
Geometric framework analyzes bias in variational inference for posterior functionals.
problem Analyzing the bias of posterior functionals under variational approximations.
method Developed a geometric framework to evaluate the bias of posterior functionals using the variational tangent space.
result The leading-order bias of a posterior functional is determined by its component orthogonal to the variational tangent space.
Bayesian Federated Learning improves model reliability in dynamic environments.
problem Uncertainty quantification and robust adaptation in distributed learning.
method Proposes a continual BFL framework using SGLD for sequential updates and continual learning challenges.
result Continual Bayesian updates preserve knowledge and adapt to evolving data.
Discrete diffusion models improve text and image inference.
problem Challenges in posterior sampling with discrete diffusion models.
method Anchored Posterior Sampling (APS) with quantized expectation and anchored remasking.
result APS achieves state-of-the-art performance on various tasks.
Kolmogorov-Arnold network improves GW catalog posterior construction.
problem Efficiently constructing posterior distributions for GW catalogs.
method Using the Kolmogorov-Arnold network to create lightweight neural density estimators.
result Kolmogorov-Arnold network achieves superior interpretability and accuracy in posterior construction.
Develops methods to estimate gradient of EIG for Bayesian Experimental Design.
problem Optimizing Bayesian inference through efficient experimental design.
method Introduces UEEG-MCMC and BEEG-AP methods for estimating EIG gradient.
result Both methods improve upon existing benchmarks in EIG optimization.
PPT optimizes transformer behavior by steering its latent posterior using prior samples.
problem Eliciting desired behavior from transformers without backpropagation.
method Posterior Prefix Tuning (PPT) uses predictive Monte Carlo (PMC) samples and importance sampling to optimize the latent posterior.
result PPT optimizes transformer behavior without backpropagation, achieving high utility across different utility functions.
Active inference selects actions to maximize information gain, aiding structure learning.
problem Learning the structure of underlying world models.
method Active inference selects actions based on expected free energy, which includes information gain and value.
result Actions that maximize information gain help disambiguate among alternative models.
Simplified Variational Bayes for easier inference.
problem Complex derivation of Variational Bayes.
method 3-step recipe to identify posterior form and directly write updates.
result Easier, faster, shorter derivation of Variational Bayes.