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.
This paper develops scalable control variates for Monte Carlo methods using stochastic optimization.
problem Reducing variance in Monte Carlo estimators for large-scale problems.
method Control variates based on Stein operators, optimized through stochastic optimization.
result Novel theoretical results and empirical validations show effective variance reduction.
The paper explores how control variates can reduce variance in Monte Carlo simulations, especially for Sobolev functions.
problem Efficiency of control variates in reducing variance for Monte Carlo simulations.
method Study of a specific quadrature rule using nonparametric regression-adjusted control variates.
result A specific quadrature rule can improve the Monte Carlo rate and achieve the minimax optimal rate under sufficient smoothness assumptions.
RQMC improves optimization in variational Bayes problems.
problem Optimizing variational Bayes problems with noisy objective functions.
method Use of randomized quasi-Monte Carlo (RQMC) sampling with stochastic L-BFGS.
result RQMC can significantly speed up optimization and find better parameter values.
A new variational method for SSMs improves inference efficiency.
problem Hard variational inference for state space models.
method Proposes variational marginal particle filter (VMPF) based on Rao-Blackwellization.
result VMPF provides tighter variational bounds and sometimes benefits from unbiased reparameterization.
CRAFT improves on existing methods for sampling complex distributions.
problem Sampling from complex probability distributions.
method Combines SMC with variational inference using normalizing flows.
result Improves on Annealed Flow Transport Monte Carlo and MCMC-based Stochastic Normalizing Flows.
VCSMC improves efficiency in Bayesian phylogenetic inference.
problem Inefficient exploration of phylogenetic state space.
method Variational Combinatorial Sequential Monte Carlo (VCSMC) and nested CSMC.
result VCSMC and VNCSMC explore higher probability spaces efficiently.
In this short note we provide an unbiased multilevel Monte Carlo estimator of the log marginal likelihood and discuss its application to variational Bayes.
ControlSHAP stabilizes Shapley value approximations using control variates.
problem High computational cost of exact Shapley values in blackbox models.
method ControlSHAP uses Monte Carlo control variates to stabilize Shapley value approximations.
result Significant reduction in Monte Carlo variability of Shapley estimates.
Paper advances black-box VI using flows and Monte-Carlo methods.
problem Improving automatic posterior inference in black-box VI.
method Combines normalizing flows, Monte-Carlo methods, and optimization considerations.
result Significant improvement in state-of-the-art variational inference.
Many recent advances in large scale probabilistic inference rely on variational methods. The success of variational approaches depends on (i) formulating a flexible parametric family of distributions, and (ii) optimizing the parameters to find the member of this family that most closely approximates the exact posterior…
Variational Inference shows promise for Bayesian GARCH model estimation.
problem Bayesian estimation of GARCH-family models using Monte Carlo sampling.
method Variational Inference as an alternative to Monte Carlo sampling.
result Variational Inference is a reliable and competitive method for Bayesian learning in GARCH-like models.
Paper improves VAEs using Monte Carlo methods.
problem Improving the Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO) for VAEs.
method Uses Monte Carlo techniques to improve ELBO, specifically Sequential Importance Sampling (SIS) with carefully chosen kernels.
result Demonstrates improved performance on various applications.
PEMC uses ML to enhance Monte Carlo simulations, reducing variance and runtime.
problem Computational inefficiency in Monte Carlo simulations for complex tasks.
method Prediction-Enhanced Monte Carlo (PEMC) framework that uses ML surrogates as predictors.
result PEMC provides unbiased evaluations with reduced variance and runtime compared to standard Monte Carlo.
Many machine learning problems involve Monte Carlo gradient estimators. As a prominent example, we focus on Monte Carlo variational inference (MCVI) in this paper. The performance of MCVI crucially depends on the variance of its stochastic gradients. We propose variance reduction by means of Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) sam…
Improved Least-Squares Monte Carlo with finite-difference ansatz.
problem Improving accuracy and stability in option pricing.
method Constructing an ansatz using finite-difference solution for conditional expected continuation payoffs.
result Reduces mean squared error and final pricing error.
A new weighted MLMC method improves efficiency in Monte Carlo simulations.
problem Improving efficiency in Monte Carlo simulations with correlated coarse level approximations.
method Generalization of MLMC to any number of levels with control variates and weights.
result Significant efficiency improvements possible, especially when coarse level approximations are poorly correlated.
A Monte Carlo method for pairs trading on mean-reverting spreads with Lévy processes.
problem Trading on mean-reverting spreads with flexible models.
method Monte Carlo simulation with variance gamma and alpha-gamma driving processes.
result Optimal trading strategies are affected by model parameters and correlation.
New variational flows improve Monte Carlo and normalization tasks.
problem Intractable global optimum in expressive variational families.
method Constructing asymptotically exact variational flows from involutive MCMC kernels.
result Provable total variation convergence of new variational families.
New method reduces inference variance for faster optimization.
problem High variance in black-box variational inference.
method Joint control variate addressing both data subsampling and Monte Carlo noise.
result Significantly reduced gradient variance, leading to faster optimization.
This work improves VAEs using MCMC methods for better variational bounds.
problem Improving the expressiveness of variational distributions in VAEs.
method Entropy-based adaptation for MALA/HMC chains to optimize tighter variational bounds.
result Higher held-out log-likelihoods and improved generative metrics.
Improved Monte-Carlo models by constraining mutual information between latent and observable variables.
problem Training density models leads to latent variables being useless.
method Weave tighter Monte-Carlo bounds with mutual information constraints.
result Improved training of models with continuous and discrete latent variables.
We introduce a stacking version of the Monte Carlo algorithm in the context of option pricing. Introduced recently for aeronautic computations, this simple technique, in the spirit of current machine learning ideas, learns control variates by approximating Monte Carlo draws with some specified function. We describe the…
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.
We introduce a new algorithm for approximate inference that combines reparametrization, Markov chain Monte Carlo and variational methods. We construct a very flexible implicit variational distribution synthesized by an arbitrary Markov chain Monte Carlo operation and a deterministic transformation that can be optimized…
CMCD sampler connects transport and variational inference for efficient sampling.
problem Efficient sampling and generative modeling in Bayesian computation.
method Developed a principled framework using divergences on path space, CMCD sampler with adaptive dynamics.
result CMCD sampler outperforms competing approaches across various experiments.
YOASOVI improves stochastic VI for large models with fast, self-correcting sampling.
problem Efficiently performing stochastic Variational Inference on large Bayesian models.
method YOASOVI uses acceptance sampling to draw only one sample per iteration, improving convergence speed and accuracy.
result YOASOVI converges faster and more accurately than regular Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo methods.
New method uses Fokker-Planck equation for sampling and inference.
problem Intractability of evaluating probability density in practical applications.
method Reformulates Fokker-Planck equation as a particle flow method, using velocity field.
result Turns intractable density evaluation into an advantage for variational inference, kernel mean embeddings, and sequential Monte Carlo.
We use neural networks as control variates with geometric integration techniques.
problem Analytic integration of neural network approximations for variance reduction.
method Integration domain subdivision using computational geometry for MLPs with continuous piecewise linear activation functions.
result Neural networks can be used as control variates with geometric integration methods.
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.
Study introduces a variational approach for efficient KL divergence estimation in Dirichlet mixture models.
problem Efficient estimation of KL divergence in Dirichlet mixture models.
method Variational approach for a closed-form solution.
result Superior efficiency and accuracy compared to Monte Carlo methods.
New method uses hyperbolic space for faster phylogenetic tree inference.
problem Inefficient Euclidean-based phylogenetic inference in high dimensions.
method Developed novel hyperbolic extensions of sequential search algorithms and variational inference methods.
result Improved speed, scalability and performance in phylogenetic inference.
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…
We show that deliberately introducing a nested simulation stage can lead to significant variance reductions when comparing two stopping times by Monte Carlo. We derive the optimal number of nested simulations and prove that the algorithm is remarkably robust to misspecifications of this number. The method is applied to…
Innovative inequalities for divergences with applications in PAC-Bayesian bounds and Monte Carlo.
problem Developing new inequalities for divergences.
method Introducing novel change of measure inequalities for f-divergences and α-divergences. result Applications in PAC-Bayesian bounds and Monte Carlo estimates.
Bayesian inference using stochastic neural networks ensembles.
problem Approximating Bayesian posterior distributions.
method Formulate stochastic ensembles of neural networks, train with variational inference, and evaluate using Monte Carlo dropout.
result Stochastic ensembles provide more accurate posterior estimates than other methods.
A new method using spherical harmonics approximates the Sliced-Wasserstein distance.
problem Approximating the Sliced-Wasserstein distance between probability measures.
method Spherical Harmonics Control Variates (SHCV) method for Monte Carlo approximation of the SW distance.
result SHCV method provides an improved rate of convergence compared to Monte Carlo for general measures.
New method for efficient online variational estimation in streaming data.
problem Efficiently estimating parameters and latent states in online parametric models.
method i.i.d. Monte Carlo sampling coupled with deep architecture.
result The method computes the evidence lower bound and its gradient efficiently.
New method improves variational inference for better posterior approximation.
problem Challenges in minimizing inclusive KL divergence for amortized variational inference.
method Likelihood-tempered sequential Monte Carlo samplers to estimate inclusive KL gradient.
result SMC-Wake method fits variational distributions more accurately than existing methods.
VBS improves sampling efficiency in cosmological data analysis.
problem High dimensionality of cosmological parameter space makes sampling computationally challenging.
method Developed a hybrid scheme combining variational self-boosted sampling with Hamiltonian Monte Carlo.
result VBS generates better quality samples and reduces auto-correlation length by a factor of 10-50.
Recent advances in stochastic gradient variational inference have made it possible to perform variational Bayesian inference with posterior approximations containing auxiliary random variables. This enables us to explore a new synthesis of variational inference and Monte Carlo methods where we incorporate one or more s…
Practitioners of Bayesian statistics have long depended on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to obtain samples from intractable posterior distributions. Unfortunately, MCMC algorithms are typically serial, and do not scale to the large datasets typical of modern machine learning. The recently proposed consensus Monte Car…
Generative models map simple samples to complex target samples.
problem Improving Monte-Carlo sampling techniques.
method Variational learning of dynamical maps between base and target measures.
result Improved sampling efficiency through feedback loops.
Monte Carlo Tree Search improves financial derivative hedging efficiency.
problem Optimizing pricing and hedging of derivative contracts in incomplete markets.
method Integrates tree search techniques with Reinforcement Learning for optimal control problems.
result Monte Carlo Tree Search outperforms Q-learning in sample efficiency and learning speed. S-VBMC improves VBMC's exploration of complex posterior distributions.
problem Efficient inference for computationally expensive models with complex posterior distributions.
method Stacking multiple independent VBMC runs to create a robust global posterior approximation.
result Significant improvements in posterior approximation quality across various applications.
Variational inference lies at the core of many state-of-the-art algorithms. To improve the approximation of the posterior beyond parametric families, it was proposed to include MCMC steps into the variational lower bound. In this work we explore this idea using steps of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm, an e…
Traditionally, the field of computational Bayesian statistics has been divided into two main subfields: variational methods and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). In recent years, however, several methods have been proposed based on combining variational Bayesian inference and MCMC simulation in order to improve their ov…
We reduce variance in Bures-Wasserstein variational inference.
problem High variance in Monte Carlo approximations of Bures-Wasserstein gradients.
method Control variates to reduce variance in the forward step.
result Proposed estimator reduces variance by orders of magnitude.