We prove exact BNN posterior convergence to GP limit and provide sampling methods.
problem Theoretical and empirical challenges in obtaining exact posterior distributions of wide BNNs.
method Theoretical proof and rejection sampling for generating exact samples.
result Exact BNN posterior converges to GP limit as width increases.
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
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
Variational inference (VI) provides fast approximations of a Bayesian posterior in part because it formulates posterior approximation as an optimization problem: to find the closest distribution to the exact posterior over some family of distributions. For practical reasons, the family of distributions in VI is usually…
New methods for tuning alpha in Gibbs posteriors improve speed and accuracy.
problem Inconsistency in Bayesian inference and lack of fast tuning methods for alpha.
method Proposed two data-driven methods: sample-splitting and bootstrapping. Formulated alpha-posteriors for three models.
result Sample-splitting outperforms SafeBayes in speed and accuracy, especially in complex models.
This paper computes exact posterior distributions of mixture weights in hierarchical Bayesian models.
problem Uncertainty in class membership or data-generating processes in heterogeneous data.
method Exact marginalization of mixture weights using dynamic programming and FFT for two components, and joint dynamic program for K >= 3 components.
result Exact posterior distributions of mixture weights are finite mixtures of Beta distributions, providing credible intervals and per-observation local false-discovery rates.
A new method approximates the exact posterior score for diffusion models.
problem Training-free guidance of diffusion models for image restoration and inverse problems.
method Presented a novel expression for the exact posterior score, leveraging it to compute step sizes on the fly.
result Demonstrated competitive performance with fewer time steps compared to state-of-the-art techniques.
PVI seeks a posterior that makes predictions closer to true data, not approximating the Bayesian posterior.
problem Finding meaningful posterior distributions under model misspecification.
method Predictive variational inference (PVI) seeks an optimal posterior density for close predictive matching to true data.
result PVI learns a posterior that is not the same as the Bayesian posterior, but is closer to the true data generating process.
Bayesian PINNs learn elliptic PDEs with near-minimax posterior contraction rate.
problem Learning elliptic PDEs with noisy data and non-homogeneous boundary conditions.
method Bayesian approach with a Hölder space prior on neural network weights.
result Posterior contracts at near-minimax rate without prior knowledge of solution smoothness.
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.
Bayesian model averaging under predictor redundancy
problem Reporting Bayesian model averaging posterior without changing the Bayesian target
method Using hard or soft regions of support space
result Region reports often give shorter and clearer summaries while preserving the main posterior information
Cold posteriors improve Bayesian neural networks by reducing overestimation of aleatoric uncertainty.
problem Overestimation of aleatoric uncertainty in Bayesian neural networks.
method Tuning the temperature of the posterior on a validation set.
result Reducing temperature leads to better reflection of true prior beliefs.
We study the problem of learning Bayesian network structures from data. Koivisto and Sood (2004) and Koivisto (2006) presented algorithms that can compute the exact marginal posterior probability of a subnetwork, e.g., a single edge, in O(n2n) time and the posterior probabilities for all n(n-1) potential edges in O(n2n…
We consider the inference of the structure of an undirected graphical model in an exact Bayesian framework. More specifically we aim at achieving the inference with close-form posteriors, avoiding any sampling step. This task would be intractable without any restriction on the considered graphs, so we limit our explora…
This paper improves parameter estimation in cardiac models using Gaussian process-based MH sampling.
problem Uncertainty in estimating patient-specific model parameters from sparse and noisy clinical data.
method Integrates surrogate modeling into Metropolis-Hastings sampling to improve computational efficiency and accuracy.
result Significant gain in computational efficiency without compromising accuracy, and insights into tissue heterogeneity.
Algorithm samples from Bingham distribution efficiently.
problem Sampling from the Bingham distribution on a sphere.
method Rejection sampling with polynomial approximation.
result Exact samples from Bingham distribution in polynomial time.
Self-reflective VAE improves inference and generative modeling without complex components.
problem Limitations of typical VAEs in inference and generative modeling.
method Introduces self-reflective inference, a new hierarchical structure that matches variational posterior to exact posterior.
result Self-reflective inference achieves state-of-the-art performance on binarized MNIST without autoregressive layers.
Gaussian Processes (GPs) are powerful non-parametric Bayesian regression models that allow exact posterior inference, but exhibit high computational and memory costs. In order to improve scalability of GPs, approximate posterior inference is frequently employed, where a prominent class of approximation techniques is ba…
Exact learning improves naive Bayes classifier performance for small samples.
problem Improving naive Bayes classifier performance with small sample sizes.
method Proposes an exact learning augmented naive Bayes classifier (ANB) that ensures a class variable with no parents.
result The proposed ANB method outperforms other methods in comparison experiments.
Bayesian unlearning uses Bayes' rule to remove data from a model, but faces challenges in obtaining the exact posterior.
problem Removing data from a trained model while maintaining model accuracy.
method Uses Laplace approximation and Variational Inference to approximate the updated posterior.
result Insights on the applicability of Bayesian unlearning in practical scenarios for neural networks.
Increasingly complex datasets pose a number of challenges for Bayesian inference. Conventional posterior sampling based on Markov chain Monte Carlo can be too computationally intensive, is serial in nature and mixes poorly between posterior modes. Further, all models are misspecified, which brings into question the val…
Exact guidance for discrete data improves posterior sampling efficiency.
problem Inefficient guidance for discrete data in posterior sampling.
method Derive exact transition rate for desired distribution given learned discrete flow matching model.
result Significantly improved efficiency with single forward pass per sampling step.
Thompson sampling (TS) is a class of algorithms for sequential decision-making, which requires maintaining a posterior distribution over a model. However, calculating exact posterior distributions is intractable for all but the simplest models. Consequently, efficient computation of an approximate posterior distributio…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have not been broadly adopted in Bayesian neural networks (BNNs). This paper initially reviews the main challenges in sampling from the parameter posterior of a neural network via MCMC. Such challenges culminate to lack of convergence to the parameter posterior. Nevertheless, thi…
We propose a simple and general variant of the standard reparameterized gradient estimator for the variational evidence lower bound. Specifically, we remove a part of the total derivative with respect to the variational parameters that corresponds to the score function. Removing this term produces an unbiased gradient …
We propose an input design method for a general class of parametric probabilistic models, including nonlinear dynamical systems with process noise. The goal of the procedure is to select inputs such that the parameter posterior distribution concentrates about the true value of the parameters; however, exact computation…
Estimates high-dimensional posterior densities by marginal distributions and neural networks.
problem High-dimensional probability density estimation for inference is difficult.
method Direct estimation of lower-dimensional marginal distributions, using Moment Networks for fast computation of moments.
result Demonstrates estimation of gravitational wave time series and applications in cosmology.
The paper tackles approximate unlearning from a subset of training data using variational inference.
problem Unlearning from a small subset of erased training data while maintaining the posterior belief from the full data.
method Formulates unlearning as minimizing KL divergence, equivalent to minimizing an evidence upper bound. Uses variational inference to approximate posterior beliefs and proposes two tricks to handle challenges.
result Demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed unlearning methods on various Bayesian models.
Posterior collapse in Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) arises when the variational posterior distribution closely matches the prior for a subset of latent variables. This paper presents a simple and intuitive explanation for posterior collapse through the analysis of linear VAEs and their direct correspondence with Prob…
A multi-layer deep Gaussian process (DGP) model is a hierarchical composition of GP models with a greater expressive power. Exact DGP inference is intractable, which has motivated the recent development of deterministic and stochastic approximation methods. Unfortunately, the deterministic approximation methods yield a…
BF-VI improves posterior approximation in complex models.
problem Inefficient posterior approximations in complex models.
method Combines normalizing flows and Bernstein polynomial transformations.
result BF-VI outperforms other VI methods in approximating complex multivariate posteriors.
We consider the problem of change-point detection in multivariate time-series. The multivariate distribution of the observations is supposed to follow a graphical model, whose graph and parameters are affected by abrupt changes throughout time. We demonstrate that it is possible to perform exact Bayesian inference when…
Communication costs, resulting from synchronization requirements during learning, can greatly slow down many parallel machine learning algorithms. In this paper, we present a parallel Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm in which subsets of data are processed independently, with very little communication. First, w…
Bayesian framework for SSP problem learns optimal strategy through interactions.
problem Sequential decision-making in stochastic shortest path problems.
method Develops a Bayesian framework to learn optimal action-value function Q∗ through interactions, avoiding unrealistic assumptions. result Demonstrates data efficiency and uncertainty quantification compared to other methods.
The paper studies conditions for exact posterior modeling in Bayesian networks.
problem Exact modeling of posterior distributions in Bayesian networks.
method Derives conditions for a recognition network to model the true posterior distribution exactly.
result Perfectness of the recognition network is crucial for local conditions to hold.
The paper simplifies Bayesian posterior using clustering to make inference more manageable.
problem Handling large-scale, redundant datasets in Bayesian learning.
method Construct an approximate posterior by replacing data points in the same cluster with the centroid.
result The approximate posterior is close to the exact posterior and easier to sample from.
New perspective on federated learning as posterior inference, improving optimization.
problem Optimizing global models in distributed learning settings.
method Formulated as posterior inference problem, using MCMC for approximate inference and federated averaging for refinement.
result Federated posterior averaging (FedPA) outperforms existing methods on benchmarks.
New method samples from posterior distributions efficiently.
problem Posterior sampling in score-based models is intractable.
method Annealed Langevin Monte Carlo with KL and Fisher divergence.
result Tractable sampling from distributions close to posterior and prior.
We study the Bayesian model averaging approach to learning Bayesian network structures (DAGs) from data. We develop new algorithms including the first algorithm that is able to efficiently sample DAGs according to the exact structure posterior. The DAG samples can then be used to construct estimators for the posterior …
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.
A new method improves posterior approximation for complex distributions.
problem Difficulty in capturing multimodal and heavy-tailed posteriors with standard normalizing flows.
method StiCTAF: stick-breaking mixture base with component-wise tail adaptation.
result Improved tail recovery and better mode coverage compared to benchmarks.
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…
BNRE improves simulation-based inference by producing more conservative posteriors.
problem Overconfident posteriors from current simulation-based inference algorithms risk false inferences.
method Balanced Neural Ratio Estimation (BNRE) that produces more conservative posterior approximations.
result BNRE produces more conservative posterior surrogates on all tested benchmarks and simulation budgets.
Combining diffusion models with Langevin dynamics improves posterior sampling efficiency.
problem Sampling from noisy posterior distributions efficiently.
method Annealed Langevin dynamics combined with diffusion models.
result Achieves posterior sampling in polynomial time with a weaker score error bound.
LPF provides formal guarantees for aggregating multi-evidence in probabilistic tasks.
problem Lack of formal guarantees for multi-evidence reasoning in AI.
method LPF uses variational autoencoders and Sum-Product Networks to aggregate evidence items.
result Proves multiple formal guarantees including calibration preservation and error decay.
A new Fusion method combines multiple distributions efficiently.
problem Combining multiple distributions for big data or privacy.
method Recursive divide-and-conquer Monte Carlo approach.
result A robust Fusion method for many sub-posteriors.
Proposes exact inference for continuous-time Gaussian process dynamics.
problem Inexact inference methods for continuous-time Gaussian process dynamics are impractical for irregularly-sampled data.
method Uses higher-order numerical integrators to discretize dynamics with arbitrary accuracy and proposes multistep and Taylor integrators for exact inference.
result Demonstrates accurate representation of continuous-time systems through exact GP inference.
Improved predictive posterior density estimation through optimized importance sampling.
problem Low signal-to-noise ratio in posterior predictive densities.
method Optimized importance sampling using a test-time variational proxy.
result Significantly improved estimates of predictive posterior densities.