Develops possibilistic VI using maxitive Donsker-Varadhan formulation.
problem Adapting VI to possibilistic framework to handle uncertainty.
method Maxitive Donsker-Varadhan formulation for possibilistic VI.
result CBOpt optimizers achieve competitive performance in image classification.
Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) imagery can generate high resolution images of the seafloor. Thus, segmentation algorithms can be used to partition the images into different seafloor environments. In this paper, we compare two possibilistic segmentation approaches. Possibilistic approaches allow for the ability to detec…
Possibilistic risk theory starts from the hypothesis that risk is modelled by fuzzy numbers. In particular, in a possibilistic portfolio choice problem, the return of a risky asset will be a fuzzy number. The expected utility operators have been introduced in a previous paper to build an abstract theory of possibilisti…
In this paper two portfolio choice models are studied: a purely possibilistic model, in which the return of a risky asset is a fuzzy number, and a mixed model in which a probabilistic background risk is added. For the two models an approximate formula of the optimal allocation is computed, with respect to the possibili…
New validity index for fuzzy-possibilistic c-means clustering.
problem Conflicting results in determining the optimal number of clusters due to noisy data points and outliers.
method Introducing a new validity index (FP index) for fuzzy-possibilistic c-means clustering.
result FP index works well in datasets with varying cluster shapes and densities.
This paper introduces Bounded Fuzzy Possibilistic Method (BFPM) by addressing several issues that previous clustering/classification methods have not considered. In fuzzy clustering, object's membership values should sum to 1. Hence, any object may obtain full membership in at most one cluster. Possibilistic clustering…
BFPM improves machine learning accuracy by considering object types and memberships flexibly.
problem Inaccurate learning due to missing important parameters.
method BFPM relaxes fuzzy and possibilistic constraints, allowing arbitrary object memberships and movement analysis.
result BFPM enhances object movement analysis and provides flexible search space.
In the study of investment problem, aside from the investment risk the background risk appears. Both the investment risk and the background risk are probabilistically described by random variables. This paper starts from the hypothesis that the two types of risk can be represented both probabilistically (by random vari…
This paper proposes two mixed models to study a consumer's optimal saving in the presence of two types of risk.
Categorical d-separation criterion simplifies probability graph analysis.
problem Detecting causal relationships in probability distributions.
method Introducing categorical definitions for causal models and d-separation.
result Abstract version of d-separation criterion applies to various probability theories.
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.
Paper introduces f-divergence variational inference for broader application.
problem Variational inference limited to specific divergences.
method Generalizes variational inference to all f-divergences using f-divergence minimization.
result Unified framework for variational inference with arbitrary f-divergences.
We define a generalized likelihood function based on uncertainty measures and show that maximizing such a likelihood function for different measures induces different types of classifiers. In the probabilistic framework, we obtain classifiers that optimize the cross-entropy function. In the possibilistic framework, we …
RVI accelerates encoderless VI for faster convergence.
problem Slow convergence in encoderless VI methods.
method Introduces Relay Variational Inference (RVI) for faster learning.
result RVI outperforms existing methods in convergence speed and performance.
A-VI can approximate F-VI under certain conditions, improving inference in some models.
problem Approximate Bayesian inference using factorized distributions.
method Amortized variational inference (A-VI) learns a common inference function for latent variables.
result A-VI can close the amortization gap in simple hierarchical models.
This paper reviews recent advancements in amortized Variational Inference.
problem Scalability and efficiency issues in traditional Variational Inference.
method Systematic review of various Variational Inference techniques, focusing on amortized approaches.
result Amortized Variational Inference improves scalability and efficiency for generative modeling tasks.
Automates VI divergence selection for efficient few-shot learning.
problem Efficiently selecting divergence measures for VI to improve performance.
method Meta-learning algorithm to learn optimal divergence metric and variational parameter initialization.
result Meta-learning approach outperforms standard VI methods across various tasks.
We develop a parallel variational inference (VI) procedure for use in data-distributed settings, where each machine only has access to a subset of data and runs VI independently, without communicating with other machines. This type of "embarrassingly parallel" procedure has recently been developed for MCMC inference al…
A new variational inference method using Gaussian score matching.
problem Approximating posterior distributions in Bayesian statistics.
method Score matching principle applied to variational inference.
result Gaussian score matching VI (GSM-VI) is faster and requires fewer gradient evaluations.
New findings on Malgrange-Galois groupoid for Painlevé VI equation parameters.
problem Understanding transformations preserving specific forms for Painlevé VI equation.
method Computed Malgrange-Galois groupoid for Painlevé VI family with all parameters.
result Solutions of Painlevé VI do not satisfy new partial differential equations.
A new method interpolates between sampling and variational inference using stochastic mixtures.
problem Combining the strengths of sampling and variational inference methods.
method Develops a framework using stochastic mixtures of simple component distributions to interpolate between sampling and variational inference.
result Improves on both sampling and variational inference methods by reducing bias and variance.
Novel approach simplifies VI problems with faster performance.
problem Black-box VI optimization problems.
method Sample Average Approximation (SAA) combined with quasi-Newton methods and line search.
result Achieves faster performance than existing methods.
Analyzes factors affecting flow VI performance.
problem Consistent performance of flow VI across studies.
method Step-by-step analysis of capacity, objectives, batchsize, estimators, and step-sizes.
result Specific recommendations and a flow VI recipe.
A new VIS approach improves log-likelihood estimation in latent variable models.
problem Challenges in achieving high log-likelihood with VI for complex posterior distributions.
method Uses forward χ2 divergence to optimize proposal distribution for better log-likelihood estimation. result Consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in log-likelihood and parameter estimation.
Improved VI with Price's gradient estimator for target log-density.
problem Approximating target distributions from unnormalized log-densities.
method Stochastic gradient-based variational inference with Price's gradient estimator.
result Identifies Price's gradient as the key to WVI's superior performance.
Many modern unsupervised or semi-supervised machine learning algorithms rely on Bayesian probabilistic models. These models are usually intractable and thus require approximate inference. Variational inference (VI) lets us approximate a high-dimensional Bayesian posterior with a simpler variational distribution by solv…
New method improves approximate inference for Bayesian models.
problem Approximate inference for high-dimensional Bayesian models.
method Entropic regularization of mean-field variational inference.
result Improved recovery of true posterior dependency.
New Holder bounds improve variational inference by flattening thermodynamic curves.
problem Improving variational inference by addressing performance gaps between theory and practice.
method Generalizing thermodynamic integration to weighted Holder mean, introducing Holder bounds.
result Holder bounds promise a one-step approximation of exact marginal log-likelihood.
VI approximates complex densities faster than classical methods.
problem Approximating complex probability densities.
method Optimization of a family of probability density functions using KL divergence.
result VI converges faster than Markov Chain Monte Carlo.
This work proposes a new method for variational inference using Wasserstein gradient descent.
problem Optimizing variational parameters to match a true posterior distribution.
method Reinterpreting VI as an optimization problem over a variational parameter space, using Wasserstein gradient descent.
result The proposed Wasserstein gradient descent can be seen as a generalization of existing optimization techniques in VI.
New algorithms solve stochastic variational inequalities without bounded variance assumption.
problem Solving stochastic variational inequalities without bounded variance assumption.
method Developed algorithms for two classes of problems: monotone and structured nonmonotone VIs.
result Oracle complexity of O(ε^-4) for solving VIs with unbounded domains and possibly unbounded variance.
Simulation-free VI closes the approximation gap in latent SDEs
problem Recovering dynamical systems from noisy observations
method Helmholtz-SDE
result Recovers dynamics more faithfully than prior methods
This paper bridges statistical and machine learning approaches to variational inference.
problem Statisticians struggle to understand variational inference from a Frequentist perspective.
method Explains VI, VAEs, and DDMs from a Frequentist viewpoint, starting with EM.
result VI emerges as a scalable solution for intractable E-steps in VAEs and DDMs.
AMF-VI uses adaptive mixtures of flows for robust VI across diverse distributions.
problem Inconsistent behavior of single-flow models across different distributions.
method Sequential expert training of individual flows and adaptive global weight estimation via likelihood-driven updates.
result AMF-VI achieves lower negative log-likelihood and stable gains in transport metrics across various posterior families.
One of the core problems of modern statistics is to approximate difficult-to-compute probability densities. This problem is especially important in Bayesian statistics, which frames all inference about unknown quantities as a calculation involving the posterior density. In this paper, we review variational inference (V…
Solve Painleve VI to relate instanton bundles.
problem Relate instanton bundles to Painleve VI solutions.
method Generalize Hitchin's logarithmic connection to vector bundles with SL2 action.
result Identify Okamoto transformations as creation operators.
This paper introduces VI for physics-informed deep learning, enhancing uncertainty quantification.
problem Uncertainty quantification in physics-informed deep learning.
method Variational inference for generative and inverse problems.
result VI provides a flexible and scalable approach for physics-based inference.
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.
To obtain uncertainty estimates with real-world Bayesian deep learning models, practical inference approximations are needed. Dropout variational inference (VI) for example has been used for machine vision and medical applications, but VI can severely underestimates model uncertainty. Alpha-divergences are alternative …
New geometric insights reveal the persistence distribution in spin systems.
problem Determining the full persistence probability distribution in non-Markovian stochastic processes.
method Exact Fredholm Pfaffian structure and Painlevé VI system analysis.
result Recovery of the universal persistence exponent and its geometric interpretation.
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…
Various standard texts on differential topology maintain that the level-preserving map defined by the track of an isotopy of embeddings is itself an embedding. This note describes a simple counterexample to this assertion.
A new differentiable model for sampling DAGs that speeds up optimization.
problem Efficiently sampling and learning DAG structures in continuous optimization.
method DP-DAG model with VI-DP-DAG for DAG learning from data.
result VI-DP-DAG outperforms other methods in DAG structure and causal mechanism learning.
Statistical inference methods are fundamentally important in machine learning. Most state-of-the-art inference algorithms are variants of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or variational inference (VI). However, both methods struggle with limitations in practice: MCMC methods can be computationally demanding; VI methods …
Combines VI and EP for better Gaussian process hyperparameter learning.
problem Improving hyperparameter learning in Gaussian processes for better performance.
method Hybrid training procedure combining Variational Inference (VI) for posterior inference and Expectation Propagation (EP) for hyperparameter learning.
result The hybrid training procedure provides a better learning objective and generalizes better than using only VI or EP.
Paper analyzes VI for location-scale families, proving robustness guarantees for mean and correlation recovery.
problem Misspecification in VI for intractable target densities.
method Variational inference on location-scale families with symmetries.
result VI recovers mean and correlation matrix under specific symmetries.
A novel stepwise VI method using vine copulas for complex latent dependence.
problem Modeling complex latent dependence structures in probabilistic models.
method Stepwise estimation of vine copula parameters using Rényi divergence and a stopping criterion.
result Our method outperforms mean-field VI and is more parsimonious in complex applications.
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…