A new method improves inference for complex Bayesian models.
problem Bayesian inference for doubly intractable distributions is computationally challenging.
method Monte Carlo Stein variational gradient descent (MC-SVGD) approach.
result The method achieves substantial computational gains over existing algorithms.
Bayesian inference for models that have an intractable partition function is known as a doubly intractable problem, where standard Monte Carlo methods are not applicable. The past decade has seen the development of auxiliary variable Monte Carlo techniques (Møller et al., 2006; Murray et al., 2006) for tackling this pr…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are widely used to sample from complicated distributions, especially to sample from the posterior distribution in Bayesian inference. However, MCMC is not directly applicable when facing the doubly intractable problem. In this paper, we discussed and compared two existing solu…
A large number of statistical models are "doubly-intractable": the likelihood normalising term, which is a function of the model parameters, is intractable, as well as the marginal likelihood (model evidence). This means that standard inference techniques to sample from the posterior, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (…
Computing partition functions, the normalizing constants of probability distributions, is often hard. Variants of importance sampling give unbiased estimates of a normalizer Z, however, unbiased estimates of the reciprocal 1/Z are harder to obtain. Unbiased estimates of 1/Z allow Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling of "d…
New MCMC methods use auxiliary variables to sample from intractable distributions.
problem Sampling from distributions with unknown normalizing constants.
method Unified Markov chain Monte Carlo framework with auxiliary variables.
result New algorithms outperform existing methods on synthetic and real datasets.
The exchange algorithm is studied for its convergence and asymptotic variance.
problem Theoretical limitations of the exchange algorithm in sampling from doubly-intractable distributions.
method Theoretical analysis of the exchange algorithm's convergence speed and asymptotic variance.
result The exchange algorithm converges at a geometric rate and satisfies a Central Limit Theorem.
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.
Undirected graphical models are applied in genomics, protein structure prediction, and neuroscience to identify sparse interactions that underlie discrete data. Although Bayesian methods for inference would be favorable in these contexts, they are rarely used because they require doubly intractable Monte Carlo sampling…
Action-BED: Task-Driven Bayesian Experimental Design
problem Bayesian experimental design with doubly intractable objectives
method Formulating BED in terms of expected future loss (EFL) and optimising it with stochastic gradients
result Simplified and task-driven framework for BED
New method uses neural exponential families for likelihood-free inference.
problem Bayesian Likelihood-Free Inference with intractable likelihood.
method Score Matching neural conditional exponential families for approximate likelihood.
result State-of-the-art performance in posterior sampling for intractable likelihood models.
Bayesian approach for inhomogeneous Poisson process intensity estimation.
problem Intractable integral in likelihood of Gaussian Cox process.
method Joint modeling of intensity and cumulative intensity as transformed Gaussian process; exact MCMC sampler.
result Exact posterior inference without approximations.
This paper addresses challenges in flexibly modeling multimodal data that lie on constrained spaces. Such data are commonly found in spatial applications, such as climatology and criminology, where measurements are restricted to a geographical area. Other settings include domains where unsuitable recordings are discard…
New scalable variational Bayes methods for Hawkes processes.
problem Computational intractability of Bayesian estimation for generalised nonlinear Hawkes processes.
method Unified variational Bayes framework, adaptive mean-field approximation, sparsity-inducing procedure.
result Adaptive mean-field variational algorithm for sigmoid Hawkes processes is scalable and robust.
Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is now an established technique for statistical inference used in cases where the likelihood function is computationally expensive or not available. It relies on the use of a~model that is specified in the form of a~simulator, and approximates the likelihood at a~parameter value $…
NPE improves scalability and efficiency for ERGMs.
problem Scalability and efficiency issues in Bayesian ERGM estimation.
method Neural posterior estimation (NPE) for ERGMs using neural network density estimation.
result NPE provides more efficient and scalable inference for ERGMs.
Extends Mallows model to handle item indifference in rankings.
problem Real data often contains item indifference, challenging strict preference assumptions.
method Proposes Clustered Mallows Model (CMM) to accommodate item indifference.
result CMM provides a flexible representation of rank collections with ordered clusters.
The paper explores solutions to the distributional Bellman equation in reinforcement learning.
problem Distributional reinforcement learning considers complete return distributions, not just expected returns.
method Study existence and uniqueness of solutions to general distributional Bellman equations, linking them to multivariate affine equations.
result Any solution to a distributional Bellman equation can be derived from a multivariate affine distributional equation.
Proposes vMF distribution for skewed elliptical distributions.
problem Skewed distributions not adequately modeled by symmetric distributions.
method Introduces von-Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution to represent skewed elliptical distributions.
result vMF distribution provides an explicit and simple probability representation of skewed elliptical distributions.
Study calculates tail risk for various mixture distributions.
problem Estimating tail risk for complex distribution mixtures.
method Analyzes tail conditional expectation for location-scale mixtures of elliptical distributions.
result Developed methods for calculating tail risk in various distributions.
We realise the first and second Grushin distributions as symmetry reductions of the 3-dimensional Heisenberg distribution and 4-dimensional Engel distribution respectively. Similarly, we realise the Martinet distribution as an alternative symmetry reduction of the Engel distribution. These reductions allow us to derive…
Recent work has shown that deep generative models assign higher likelihood to out-of-distribution inputs than to training data. We show that a factor underlying this phenomenon is a mismatch between the nature of the prior distribution and that of the data distribution, a problem found in widely used deep generative mo…
Method uses optimal transport to complete distributional matrices.
problem Matrix completion for distributional data.
method Nearest neighbors in Wasserstein space.
result Method recovers distributions in Wasserstein metric.
Income and wealth distribution affect stability of a society to a large extent and high inequality affects it negatively. Moreover, in the case of developed countries, recently has been proven that inequality is closely related to all negative phenomena affecting society. So far, Econophysics papers tried to analyse in…
Study clusters distributions with known or unknown clusters using distribution testing.
problem Cluster distributions that are ε-far in total variation. method Distribution testing approach to establish upper and lower bounds on sample complexity.
result Achieves tight sample complexity bounds for all regimes (up to a logarithmic factor).
Gradually Truncated Log-normal distribution - Size distribution of firms Abstract Many natural and economical phenomena are described through power law or log- normal distributions. In these cases, probability decreases very slowly with step size compared to normal distribution. Thus it is essential to cut-off these di…
A new distribution family extends the α-stable distribution with a degree of freedom parameter.
problem Lack of moments in the α-stable distribution. method Wright function framework to combine and extend distribution families.
result Generalized α-stable distribution with valid moments. Paper develops a new method to improve model calibration under distribution shifts.
problem Challenges in uncertainty quantification with different training and test distributions.
method Develops multi-domain temperature scaling to handle distribution shifts.
result Outperforms existing methods on in-distribution and out-of-distribution test sets.
New class of heavy-tailed distributions shows weighted averages dominate individual variables.
problem Understanding and comparing risks in heavy-tailed distributions.
method Introducing a new class of heavy-tailed distributions and proving stochastic dominance relations.
result Weighted averages of random variables in this class are stochastically larger than individual variables.
Researchers derived formulas for joint moments of elliptical distributions.
problem Calculating joint moments of elliptical distributions.
method Used Stein's lemma and two different methods to derive expressions.
result New formulae for expectations of product of normally distributed random variables and simplified expressions for other distributions.
Paper proposes a new method for designing materials using deep learning.
problem Designing high-performance material distributions from given distributions.
method Iterative process of selecting, generating, and merging material distributions using a deep generative model.
result The method improves material performance through iterative refinement.
One-shot algorithm for feature-distributed kernel PCA reduces communication costs.
problem Efficiently perform kernel PCA in distributed computing environments.
method Inspired by dual relationship between sample-distributed and feature-distributed scenarios, proposes a one-shot algorithm for feature-distributed kernel PCA.
result The algorithm provides high-quality results with low communication costs, especially when eigenvalues decay fast.
Paper finds how many neurons are needed to approximate histogram distributions.
problem How many neurons are needed to approximate a target probability distribution?
method Examined for uniform input distribution and histogram target distributions, using efficient neural net construction.
result Obtained a new upper bound on the number of required neurons, strictly better than previous bounds.
Paper analyzes origami slope gaps and their distribution, finding a unique pattern.
problem Analyzing slope gaps in origami surfaces.
method Derived slope gap distribution of a specific origami by considering return times under the horocycle flow.
result Found a unique distribution of origami slope gaps, not a sum of scaled Hall distributions.
A new distributed clustering framework using distributional kernel.
problem Clustering in distributed networks with arbitrary shapes, sizes, and densities.
method Distributed Clustering based on Distributional Kernel (KDC) using similarity of distributions.
result KDC guarantees equivalent clustering outcomes to centralized methods, reduces runtime, and discovers arbitrary clusters.
Paper introduces a new distributional successor measure for reinforcement learning.
problem Learning the distributional consequences of behavior in reinforcement learning.
method Formulates distributional successor measure as a distribution over distributions, proposes algorithm to learn it from data.
result Demonstrates zero-shot risk-sensitive policy evaluation.
The paper extends distributions by singular curves, revealing structural equivalences.
problem Extending (3,6)-distributions using singular curves. method Using data from singular curves, the paper extends (3,6)-distributions to higher rank distributions. result The equivalence of classification problems for four extended distribution classes.
Random matrix ensembles yield uniform distributions on manifolds.
problem Understanding distributions of vectors in random matrix ensembles.
method Analyzing eigenvalues, singular values, and Autonne-Takagi vectors of various random matrix ensembles.
result Uniform distributions on specific manifolds for different types of random matrix ensembles.
New distributions allow greedy arm selection in sparse bandit problems.
problem Sparse contextual bandit problem with sparse parameters and feature distributions.
method Introduced new distribution classes and demonstrated that mixtures of these distributions are also greedy-applicable.
result Greedy algorithm applicable to a wider range of arm feature distributions, including those with origin-asymmetric support.
Study error bounds in evaluating distributional computational graphs.
problem Error analysis in evaluating graphs with inputs as probability distributions.
method Establish non-asymptotic error bounds using Wasserstein-1 distance.
result Non-asymptotic error bounds for discretization errors in distributional computational graphs.
Study on continuous sequence classification with distribution uncertainty.
problem Classifying continuous sequences with varying distribution uncertainty.
method Proposes distribution-free tests for three test designs: fixed-length, sequential, and two-phase tests.
result Error probabilities decay exponentially fast for all test designs.
The paper shows strong correlation between in-distribution and out-of-distribution performance in various machine learning models.
problem Understanding reliability of machine learning systems in unseen environments.
method Empirical analysis of various models and distribution shifts on CIFAR-10, ImageNet, and other datasets.
result Out-of-distribution performance is strongly correlated with in-distribution performance across different models and distribution shifts.
Study explores geometric structure and prior for beta-logistic distribution.
problem Understanding the geometric structure and prior distributions of the beta-logistic distribution.
method Exploring dual geometric structure and uncovering α-parallel prior. result The beta-logistic distribution admits an α-parallel prior for any real number α. We propose to interpret distribution model risk as sensitivity of expected loss to changes in the risk factor distribution, and to measure the distribution model risk of a portfolio by the maximum expected loss over a set of plausible distributions defined in terms of some divergence from an estimated distribution. The…
Method learns statistics of return distributions via neural networks and maximum mean discrepancy.
problem Learning probability distributions in reinforcement learning.
method Maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) for learning unrestricted statistics of return distributions.
result Method outperforms standard distributional RL baselines on Atari games.
Deep networks can approximate high-dimensional distributions from low-dimensional ones.
problem Approximating high-dimensional distributions from low-dimensional ones.
method Proved neural networks can transform low-dimensional distributions to high-dimensional ones with arbitrary closeness measured by Wasserstein distances and maximum mean discrepancy.
result Upper bounds of the approximation error are obtained in terms of the width and depth of neural network.
The paper defines MTCov for skewed elliptical distributions.
problem No specific problem stated, but dealing with skewed elliptical distributions.
method Defined MTCov for generalized skew-elliptical distributions and compared with skewed and non-skewed normal distributions.
result Special formula for MTCov of generalized skew-elliptical distributions.
Paper proposes MMC to avoid high-density bias in clustering.
problem High-density bias in density-based clustering.
method Introduces mass distribution as a better foundation for clustering, proposing mass-maximization clustering (MMC).
result MMC avoids high-density bias and discovers clusters of arbitrary shapes, sizes, and densities.