Improved Bayesian inference using power priors with historical data.
problem Improving Bayesian inference with historical data.
method Generalized power priors that adapt to the α parameter of Amari's α-divergence. result Improved performance through appropriate choices of the α parameter. The paper argues for interpreting neural networks as approximating the true posterior, enhancing in-context learning.
problem The limitations of traditional MLE interpretation in large-scale, single-epoch training setups.
method Demonstrates the power of interpreting neural networks as approximations of the true posterior, using experiments to predict generalizations.
result Models become robust in-context learners by effectively composing knowledge from their training data, revealing surprising generalizations.
Improved sparse Gaussian processes using structured scaling matrices and Power-EP framework.
problem Scaling Gaussian processes for large datasets.
method Structured diagonal scaling matrix and Power-EP framework.
result Structured approximations improve performance without increasing computational cost.
Robust VB framework handles contamination using min-max median aggregation.
problem Handling contamination and outliers in datasets.
method Partition data into subsets, formulate robust optimization problem, use min-max median KL divergence.
result Min-max median formulation improves robustness and statistical rates.
Deep latent variable models (LVM) such as variational auto-encoder (VAE) have recently played an important role in text generation. One key factor is the exploitation of smooth latent structures to guide the generation. However, the representation power of VAEs is limited due to two reasons: (1) the Gaussian assumption…
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo is a powerful algorithm for sampling from difficult-to-normalize posterior distributions. However, when the geometry of the posterior is unfavorable, it may take many expensive evaluations of the target distribution and its gradient to converge and mix. We propose neural transport (NeuTra) HMC, …
New algorithm speeds up sampling from complex Bayesian mixture models.
problem Sampling from non-log-concave, multi-modal posterior distributions in Bayesian Gaussian mixtures.
method Introduced Reflected Metropolis-Hastings Random Walk (RMRW) algorithm.
result Proved mixing time bound for RMRW in symmetric two-component Gaussian mixtures.
How can one perform Bayesian inference on stochastic simulators with intractable likelihoods? A recent approach is to learn the posterior from adaptively proposed simulations using neural network-based conditional density estimators. However, existing methods are limited to a narrow range of proposal distributions or r…
We use neural networks to estimate complex model posteriors efficiently.
problem Intractable likelihood functions in complex models.
method Train a neural network to map data to posterior distributions of model parameters.
result Our method converges to true posteriors in Kullback-Leibler divergence.
Machine learning techniques improve Bayesian computation for complex data.
problem Infeasible posterior computation in high-dimensional models.
method Improving posterior computation using machine learning techniques.
result Potential to enhance Bayesian computation efficiency.
CNR uses convex optimization to estimate conditional distributions.
problem Estimating uncertainty in predictions and posterior conditional distributions.
method Convex optimization of a posterior defined via non-linear transformations on Gaussians.
result CNR can fit arbitrary conditional distributions, including multimodal and non-symmetric ones.
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.
Variational auto-encoders (VAE) are scalable and powerful generative models. However, the choice of the variational posterior determines tractability and flexibility of the VAE. Commonly, latent variables are modeled using the normal distribution with a diagonal covariance matrix. This results in computational efficien…
Variational methods that rely on a recognition network to approximate the posterior of directed graphical models offer better inference and learning than previous methods. Recent advances that exploit the capacity and flexibility in this approach have expanded what kinds of models can be trained. However, as a proposal…
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…
Paper presents IPVI for unbiased DGP inference with efficiency.
problem Intractable exact inference in deep Gaussian processes.
method Implicit posterior variational inference framework.
result IPVI achieves unbiased posterior belief with efficiency.
Proposes a new method for posterior sampling using MMD with negative distance kernel.
problem Posterior sampling and conditional generative modeling.
method Approximates joint distribution using discrete Wasserstein gradient flows of MMD with negative distance kernel.
result Establishes an error bound for posterior distributions and proves the method is a Wasserstein gradient flow.
Bayesian framework for sphere regression using Gaussian fields.
problem Nonparametric regression on the sphere with Gaussian priors.
method Isotropic Gaussian field priors, harmonic structure, exact posterior distributions, optimal spectral truncation, posterior contraction rates.
result Sharp posterior contraction rates for Gaussian priors with polynomially decaying angular power spectra.
Flexible VAEs using FIFs improve model likelihood on image datasets.
problem Limitations of diagonal Gaussian posteriors in VAEs.
method Regularized Free-form Injective Flow (FIF) for flexible posterior.
result Full covariance VAEs outperform diagonal Gaussian posteriors.
Diffusion models tackle noisy inverse problems with posterior sampling.
problem Efficiently solving general noisy inverse problems.
method Approximation of posterior sampling for diffusion models.
result Diffusion models can handle various noise statistics and nonlinear problems.
New critics improve VAEs by preventing latent collapse.
problem Posterior collapse in VAEs where latent variables are ignored.
method Inference critics that detect and incentivize meaningful latent representations.
result Optimizing inference critics increases mutual information between latent and observations.
Exact posterior score estimation for solving linear inverse problems
problem Solving linear inverse problems
method Derive the exact posterior score and use it as a denoising training objective
result EPS outperforms training-free and training-based baselines on various metrics
New method uses neural networks to efficiently approximate Bayesian inference for complex models.
problem Efficiently approximating Bayesian inference for complex models with varying temperatures.
method Fully amortized neural posterior estimator trained on a single forward pass.
result Achieves competitive posterior approximations across various temperatures and benchmarks.
Variational autoencoder is a powerful deep generative model with variational inference. The practice of modeling latent variables in the VAE's original formulation as normal distributions with a diagonal covariance matrix limits the flexibility to match the true posterior distribution. We propose a new transformation, …
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.
Variational inference is a powerful tool for approximate inference, and it has been recently applied for representation learning with deep generative models. We develop the variational Gaussian process (VGP), a Bayesian nonparametric variational family, which adapts its shape to match complex posterior distributions. T…
A scalable method for efficient inference in Gaussian process regression networks.
problem Intractable inference in Gaussian process regression networks (GPRN).
method Tensorization of output space, tensor/matrix-normal variational posteriors, joint optimization, and exploiting Kronecker product structure.
result Captures posterior dependencies and improves inference quality for large number of outputs.
New method addresses error bounds for PnP-ULA under mismatched models.
problem Error bounds for PnP-ULA under mismatched measurement and prior models.
method Posterior-L2 pseudometric to quantify error bounds.
result Explicit error bound for PnP-ULA under mismatched posterior distribution.
Improved NPE with conditional diffusions and summary networks.
problem Approximating complex posterior distributions efficiently and accurately.
method Conditional diffusions coupled with high-capacity summary networks.
result Conditional diffusions offer improved stability, accuracy, and faster training times.
L-C2ST improves local diagnostics for SBI approximations.
problem Evaluating trustworthiness of posterior approximations in SBI.
method Local evaluation of posterior estimators at any observation.
result Offers better statistical power and interpretability.
Transformers can approximate posterior predictive distributions through in-context learning.
problem Bayesian prediction tasks, especially beyond point predictions.
method Gradient descent algorithm targeting posterior predictive mean and variance, followed by nonlinear mappings.
result Transformers can implement algorithms to approximate posterior predictive distributions.
The PAC-Bayesian approach is a powerful set of techniques to derive non- asymptotic risk bounds for random estimators. The corresponding optimal distribution of estimators, usually called the Gibbs posterior, is unfortunately intractable. One may sample from it using Markov chain Monte Carlo, but this is often too slow…
Method trains neural network for optimal decisions from stochastic simulators.
problem Suboptimal decisions from SBI approximations of posterior distributions.
method Trains neural network on simulated data to predict optimal actions.
result Induces similar cost as true posterior for optimal actions.
C-DPS improves diffusion posterior sampling for inverse problems without projection or likelihood approximation.
problem Inaccurate and unstable solutions in inverse problems due to complex or high-noise conditions.
method C-DPS introduces a forward stochastic process in measurement space evolving in parallel with data-space diffusion, leading to a closed-form posterior.
result C-DPS consistently outperforms existing methods across multiple inverse problem benchmarks.
Paper introduces RVNP to improve SBI in misspecified models.
problem Misspecification in simulation-based inference leads to unreliable posterior estimation.
method RVNP uses variational inference and error modeling to bridge the simulation-to-reality gap.
result RVNP can recover robust posterior inference without hyperparameters or priors.
We advocate an optimization-centric view on and introduce a novel generalization of Bayesian inference. Our inspiration is the representation of Bayes' rule as infinite-dimensional optimization problem (Csiszar, 1975; Donsker and Varadhan; 1975, Zellner; 1988). First, we use it to prove an optimality result of standard…
Using powerful posterior distributions is a popular approach to achieving better variational inference. However, recent works showed that the aggregated posterior may fail to match unit Gaussian prior, thus learning the prior becomes an alternative way to improve the lower-bound. In this paper, for the first time in th…
JANA trains networks to approximate Bayesian models efficiently.
problem Intractable likelihood functions and posterior densities in Bayesian models.
method End-to-end training of three networks: summary, posterior, and likelihood networks.
result JANA provides accurate amortized marginal likelihood and posterior predictive estimation.
Meta-learning framework improves model performance on few-shot classification tasks.
problem Improving model performance on few-shot classification tasks.
method Empirical Bayes formulation with synthetic gradients for transductive meta-learning.
result Meta-learning framework outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods on benchmarks.
Computable Stein discrepancies have been deployed for a variety of applications, ranging from sampler selection in posterior inference to approximate Bayesian inference to goodness-of-fit testing. Existing convergence-determining Stein discrepancies admit strong theoretical guarantees but suffer from a computational co…
The variational autoencoder (VAE) is a powerful generative model that can estimate the probability of a data point by using latent variables. In the VAE, the posterior of the latent variable given the data point is regularized by the prior of the latent variable using Kullback Leibler (KL) divergence. Although the stan…
Unified approach for selecting summary statistics in ABC.
problem Efficient inference from large datasets in likelihood-free methods.
method Characterizing and unifying three classes of summary statistics, minimizing expected posterior entropy.
result EPE-minimizing summaries lead to competitive posterior inference.
SGLDiff approximates Bayesian posterior distributions with subsampling error.
problem Approximating Bayesian posterior distributions in large-scale data settings.
method Stochastic Gradient Langevin Diffusion (SGLDiff) with subsampling.
result The Wasserstein distance between the posterior and SGLDiff's limiting distribution is bounded by a fractional power of the mean waiting time.
Due to the phenomenon of "posterior collapse," current latent variable generative models pose a challenging design choice that either weakens the capacity of the decoder or requires augmenting the objective so it does not only maximize the likelihood of the data. In this paper, we propose an alternative that utilizes t…
Paper improves variational inference by tightening bounds using perturbation theory.
problem Improving variational inference's bias and KL divergence approximation.
method Revisits perturbation theory to derive corrections that tighten variational bounds.
result New bounds are tighter and more mass-covering, leading to higher likelihoods.
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a powerful paradigm for derivative-free global optimization of a black-box objective function (BOF) that is expensive to evaluate. However, the overhead of BO can still be prohibitive for problems with highly expensive function evaluations. In this paper, we investigate how to reduce the r…
Deep learning speeds up gravitational wave analysis.
problem Computational challenge in analyzing gravitational wave data.
method Trained a neural-network to model posterior probability distributions over 15-dimensional system parameters.
result Generated accurate posterior samples at high speed.
Extends model-x framework to handle missing data.
problem Inability to control false selections in missing data settings.
method Posterior sampled imputation, univariate imputation, joint imputation and sampling knockoffs.
result Preserves theoretical guarantees of model-x framework in missing data setting.