A tutorial on variational inference for high-dimensional models.
problem Approximating marginal likelihood and posterior in Bayesian models.
method Parametric approach to variational inference.
result Variational inference is now preferred for high-dimensional models and large datasets.
The study characterizes complex structures using calculus of variations.
problem Variational characterization of complex structures.
method Calculus of variations for real vector bundle valued differential forms.
result Obtains variational characterization of complex structures.
Bayesian deep learning counts crowds robustly despite occlusions and scale variations.
problem Accurately counting individuals in crowded scenes with occlusions and varying sizes.
method Proposes a Bayesian multi-scale neural network with a ResNet feature extractor, dilated convolutions, and a Perspective-aware Aggregation Module.
result Achieves superior performance on crowd counting benchmarks with uncertainty estimates.
PRI-VAE learns disentangled representations by optimizing principle-of-relevant-information.
problem Learning disentangled representations under VAE framework remains unknown.
method Proposes PRI-VAE, a novel learning objective to optimize disentanglement.
result Demonstrates effectiveness of PRI-VAE on four benchmark datasets.
Expanding on previous work, this note generalizes geometric structures results.
problem Generalizing geometric structures results.
method Generalization to a class of geometric structures including integrable almost-complex structures.
result Main results generalized to a broader class of geometric structures.
New estimators reduce variance in training variational autoencoders with discrete latent variables.
problem Training variational autoencoders with discrete latent variables requires efficient gradient estimation.
method Introduce ReinMax-Rao and ReinMax-CV estimators using Rao-Blackwellisation and control variates.
result Demonstrate superior performance on training variational autoencoders with discrete latent spaces.
New definition of stable (r+1)-th capillary hypersurfaces proposed.
problem Stability of capillary hypersurfaces in different geometries.
method Defining stable (r+1)-th capillary hypersurfaces as smooth local minimizers of a new energy functional under volume-preserving and contact angle-preserving variations. result Generalization of stability results to (r+1)-th capillary hypersurfaces. Empirical Bayes rates via variational approximations and prior decomposition.
problem Nonparametric and high-dimensional inference convergence rates.
method Variational perspective and prior decomposition.
result Empirical Bayes posterior rates derived from variational Bayes.
The motivations for using variational inference (VI) in neural networks differ significantly from those in latent variable models. This has a counter-intuitive consequence; more expressive variational approximations can provide significantly worse predictions as compared to those with less expressive families. In this …
Smooth metric measure spaces have been studied from the two different perspectives of Bakry-Émery and Chang-Gursky-Yang, both of which are closely related to work of Perelman on the Ricci flow. These perspectives include a generalization of the Ricci curvature and the associated quasi-Einstein metrics, which include Ei…
We reinterpreting the variational inference in a new perspective. Via this way, we can easily prove that EM algorithm, VAE, GAN, AAE, ALI(BiGAN) are all special cases of variational inference. The proof also reveals the loss of standard GAN is incomplete and it explains why we need to train GAN cautiously. From that, w…
Study trade-offs between statistical and computational efficiency in variational inference.
problem Optimizing statistical accuracy vs. computational efficiency in Bayesian inference.
method Case study on Gaussian inferential models with diagonal plus low-rank precision matrices, analyzing Bayesian posterior inference and frequentist uncertainty quantification errors.
result Lower-rank models reduce variance and accelerate convergence but increase posterior inference error.
Unified view of GP approximations improves efficiency.
problem Disparate variational features limit GP efficiency.
method View GP as a Banach space to unify feature selection.
result Unified understanding of existing and new features.
Study on reducing forgetting in neural networks using compression theory.
problem Catastrophic forgetting in neural networks.
method Defined forgetting as increased description lengths, compared variational posterior approaches to prequential coding methods.
result Proposed a new continual learning method combining ML plug-in and Bayesian mixture codes.
New group theory insights on knot surgery results.
problem Understanding non-simply connected 3-manifolds from Dehn surgery.
method Group theoretic analysis of Property P conjecture variations.
result New group theoretic perspectives on Dehn filling.
GANs analyzed for performance and training issues.
problem Performance and training issues of GANs.
method SDE approximations for training GANs.
result Improved understanding of GANs through analytical perspectives.
This paper investigates how synthetic data and overparameterization improve VAE generalization.
problem Improving generalization performance of Variational Autoencoders (VAEs).
method Investigates the effectiveness of synthetic data and overparameterization in VAEs.
result Training on synthetic data and using more parameters improves VAE generalization, inference, and robustness.
We present a new algorithm for approximate inference in probabilistic programs, based on a stochastic gradient for variational programs. This method is efficient without restrictions on the probabilistic program; it is particularly practical for distributions which are not analytically tractable, including highly struc…
Variational approach improves diffusion models for solving inverse problems.
problem Challenges in solving inverse problems with diffusion models due to the nonlinear and iterative nature of the diffusion process.
method Proposes a variational approach to approximate the posterior distribution, leading to regularization by denoising diffusion process (RED-Diff).
result Demonstrates improved performance in image restoration tasks compared to state-of-the-art sampling-based diffusion models.
Optimizes kernel density ratios for better predictions and information measures.
problem Improving accuracy of kernel density estimates for density ratios.
method Derives an optimal weight function using calculus of variations.
result Reduces bias in kernel density estimates, leading to improved prediction posteriors and information-theoretic measures.
Here we propose a novel model family with the objective of learning to disentangle the factors of variation in data. Our approach is based on the spike-and-slab restricted Boltzmann machine which we generalize to include higher-order interactions among multiple latent variables. Seen from a generative perspective, the …
This paper analyzes speculative decoding, a method to speed up large language model inferences.
problem Theoretical understanding of speculative decoding is lacking.
method Conceptualizes speculative decoding as a markov chain problem and studies its key properties.
result Reveals fundamental connections between LLM components and their impact on decoding efficiency.
This paper examines how the U.S.--China trade war affects stock markets, finding evidence of financial contagion and changes in risk channels.
problem The impact of the U.S.--China trade war on stock markets and financial contagion.
method Developed a novel jump-diffusion process to account for risk contagion, using high-frequency financial data and quasi-maximum likelihood estimator.
result Evidence of financial contagion from the U.S. to China, with changes in risk contagion channels.
New method calculates volume-renormalized mass from Hamiltonian perspective.
problem Calculating volume-renormalized mass for asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds.
method Using Michel's mass invariants and a reduced Hamiltonian perspective, the volume-renormalized mass is deduced.
result The reduced Hamiltonian recovers the volume-renormalized mass and its variations.
This work interprets SFA through variational inference, relaxing linearity constraints.
problem Recover non-linear SFA from variational inference.
method Probabilistic interpretation of SFA through variational inference, relaxing linearity constraints.
result Reinterprets SFA as a variational framework, allowing slowness as a regularizer to reconstruction loss.
VAEs analyzed using harmonic analysis, showing how variance controls frequency content and robustness.
problem Understanding and optimizing VAEs for robustness and frequency control.
method Viewing VAE latent space as Gaussian space, deriving results on variance and frequency content, and demonstrating soft Lipschitz constraints.
result Increasing encoder variance reduces high frequency content and improves adversarial robustness.
Variational inference is a popular technique to approximate a possibly intractable Bayesian posterior with a more tractable one. Recently, boosting variational inference has been proposed as a new paradigm to approximate the posterior by a mixture of densities by greedily adding components to the mixture. However, as i…
New method disentangles shared and private latent factors in multimodal data.
problem Challenges in disentangling shared and private latent factors in multimodal data.
method Proposes a modification to existing multimodal Variational Autoencoders (MMVAE) to better handle modality-specific variation.
result Demonstrates improved robustness of modified MMVAE to modality-specific variation.
This paper shows equivalence between SVGD and BBVI using kernel gradient flows.
problem Bayesian inference methods and their equivalence.
method Formalizes equivalence between SVGD and BBVI using kernel gradient flows.
result BBVI corresponds precisely to SVGD when using the neural tangent kernel.
Paper formulates particle flow using variational inference and Fisher-Rao gradient flow.
problem Estimating posterior densities in probabilistic models.
method Variational formulation of particle flow, Fisher-Rao gradient flow, Gaussian and Gaussian mixture approximations.
result Gaussian and Gaussian mixture approximations of Fisher-Rao particle flow reduce to Exact Daum and Huang particle flow under linear Gaussian assumptions.
Derives new optimization methods using variational integrators.
problem Optimization methods in machine learning.
method Variational integrators and principles of Hamilton and Lagrange-d'Alembert.
result Derives two families of optimization methods, including Nesterov's accelerated gradient method.
The paper connects disentanglement to manifold charts and commutativity.
problem Discovering local charts of the data manifold for disentanglement.
method Interpreting disentanglement as local charts of the data manifold and studying commutativity.
result Commutativity is a central property in disentanglement, as shown in manifold, group theoretic, and probabilistic frameworks.
Improved neural network ensembles using Stein Variational Newton updates.
problem Lack of efficient second-order information in current ensemble methods.
method Proposes a novel approximate Bayesian inference method integrating Stein Variational Newton updates with scalable Hessian approximations.
result Significantly faster convergence and more accurate posterior distribution approximations.
A new dynamical formulation of log-PCA captures local principal modes of geodesic variations.
problem Learning principal variations of random probability measures under Wasserstein geometry.
method Introducing a new dynamical formulation of log-PCA as a variational approach.
result Deriving a general statistical convergence rate for empirical WT-PCA.
This work connects SAM to variational inference and evaluates its performance.
problem Improving generalization of gradient-based learning by finding flat minima.
method Establishes connections between SAM and Mean-Field Variational Inference (MFVI), and evaluates variational algorithms combining or interpolating between SAM and MFVI.
result SAM-like updates can be used as a drop-in replacement for the reparametrisation trick.
Unified perspective on natural gradient methods for GMMs, improving variational inference.
problem Efficiently learning multi-modal approximations of complex distributions.
method Comparison and optimization of VIPS and iBayes-GMM methods for Gaussian mixture models.
result Hybrid approach significantly outperforms both VIPS and iBayes-GMM.
Study reveals the regularization effect of variational distributions in VAEs.
problem Understanding the regularization role of variational distributions in VAEs.
method Analyzed the role of variational family in VAEs and studied the regularization effect on local geometry.
result Uncovered the implicit regularizer in the β-VAE objective and proposed a deterministic autoencoding objective. This paper provides a unifying view of a wide range of problems of interest in machine learning by framing them as the minimization of functionals defined on the space of probability measures. In particular, we show that generative adversarial networks, variational inference, and actor-critic methods in reinforcement l…
Variational inference improves training of generative flow networks.
problem Training generative flow networks efficiently and accurately.
method Define variational objectives in terms of KL divergences and optimize convex combinations.
result Variational inference methods can reduce the variance of gradients in training generative flow networks.
Simplifies VAE for anomaly detection using rate-distortion theory.
problem Anomaly detection in unsupervised learning systems.
method Revisit VAE from information theory, incorporate model uncertainty.
result Competitive performance on benchmark datasets.
Variational approaches based on neural networks are showing promise for estimating mutual information (MI) between high dimensional variables. However, they can be difficult to use in practice due to poorly understood bias/variance tradeoffs. We theoretically show that, under some conditions, estimators such as MINE ex…
We present new intuitions and theoretical assessments of the emergence of disentangled representation in variational autoencoders. Taking a rate-distortion theory perspective, we show the circumstances under which representations aligned with the underlying generative factors of variation of data emerge when optimising…
Generative adversarial networks (GANs) form a generative modeling approach known for producing appealing samples, but they are notably difficult to train. One common way to tackle this issue has been to propose new formulations of the GAN objective. Yet, surprisingly few studies have looked at optimization methods desi…
This paper bridges variational inference and Wasserstein gradient flows.
problem Combining variational inference and Wasserstein gradient flows for more efficient approximations.
method Recasting Bures-Wasserstein gradient flow as a Euclidean gradient flow and using path-derivative gradient estimator.
result A new gradient estimator for f-divergences that can be implemented using machine learning libraries. New algorithm radVI improves variational inference by optimizing radial profiles.
problem Gaussian approximations often fail to capture the radial profile of complex distributions.
method Optimizes over radial profiles in variational inference, providing theoretical guarantees.
result Theoretical convergence guarantees for radVI, improving over existing VI methods.
Paper tackles missing data in irregularly-sampled time series.
problem Modeling irregularly-sampled time series data.
method Encoder-decoder framework based on variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks.
result Models achieve competitive or better classification results on irregularly-sampled multivariate time series.
Aggregates probability models using Wasserstein space and variational approach.
problem Model aggregation in the Wasserstein space of distributions.
method Data-driven calibration framework based on Γ-convergence. result Empirical minimizers converge to the minimizers of the actual problem.
This paper examines challenges and solutions for solving variational inequalities.
problem Stability issues in solving variational inequalities, especially in multi-objective scenarios.
method Continuous-time analysis to understand and improve stability of algorithms.
result Understanding continuous-time dynamics can help in designing more stable algorithms for variational inequalities.