arXiv research

Reduces identity testing of reversible Markov chains to simpler symmetric chain tests.

Stochastic gradient methods are the workhorse (algorithms) of large-scale optimization problems in machine learning, signal processing, and other computational sciences and engineering. This paper studies Markov chain gradient descent, a variant of stochastic gradient descent where the random samples are taken on the t…

Identity testing for reversible Markov chains without symmetry assumption.

Extended elliptical slice sampling for infinite-dimensional spaces, proving reversibility.

New method trains Markov kernels for efficient sampling.

Study shows TD(0) with linear approx. converges for reversible Markov chains.

In his 2011 work, Maas has shown that the law of any time-reversible continuous-time Markov chain with finite state space evolves like a gradient flow of the relative entropy with respect to its stationary distribution. In this work we show the converse to the above by showing that if the relative law of a Markov chain…

A new sampler improves the inference of causal structures from observational data.

New MCMC method for complex models with large variables.

We study the problem of hypothesis testing between two discrete distributions, where we only have access to samples after the action of a known reversible Markov chain, playing the role of noise. We derive instance-dependent minimax rates for the sample complexity of this problem, and show how its dependence in time is…

The paper proves inequalities for Steklov eigenvalues on finite graphs.

We present a nonparametric prior over reversible Markov chains. We use completely random measures, specifically gamma processes, to construct a countably infinite graph with weighted edges. By enforcing symmetry to make the edges undirected we define a prior over random walks on graphs that results in a reversible Mark…

Graphical models are popular statistical tools which are used to represent dependent or causal complex systems. Statistically equivalent causal or directed graphical models are said to belong to a Markov equivalent class. It is of great interest to describe and understand the space of such classes. However, with curren…

Bayesian method selects interacting regions in Markov models.

HDT improves MCMC on graphs with history-dependent sampling.

This article provides the first procedure for computing a fully data-dependent interval that traps the mixing time $t_{\text{mix}}$ of a finite reversible ergodic Markov chain at a prescribed confidence level. The interval is computed from a single finite-length sample path from the Markov chain, and does not require t…

A new sampler speeds up Bayesian mixture models.

New algorithms learn Ising models from minimal observation of configuration changes.

This paper develops tools for nonreversible MCMC with convergence guarantees.

We address the problem of estimating the mixing time $t_{\mathsf{mix}}$ of an arbitrary ergodic finite-state Markov chain from a single trajectory of length $m$. The reversible case was addressed by Hsu et al. [2019], who left the general case as an open problem. In the reversible case, the analysis is greatly facilita…

CD learning is shown to be an adversarial game for fitting models.

BINDy uses Bayesian methods to identify nonlinear dynamics from data.

Let K be an irreducible and reversible Markov kernel on a finite set X. We construct a metric W on the set of probability measures on X and show that with respect to this metric, the law of the continuous time Markov chain evolves as the gradient flow of the entropy. This result is a discrete counterpart of the Wassers…

New PDMP samplers tackle variable selection in models.

We introduce a new geometric approach that constructs a transition kernel of Markov chain. Our method always minimizes the average rejection rate and even reduce it to zero in many relevant cases, which cannot be achieved by conventional methods, such as the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm or the heat bath algorithm (Gib…

The article examines entropy-information inequalities for continuous-time Markov chains under curvature-dimension conditions.

The spectral gap $γ$ of a finite, ergodic, and reversible Markov chain is an important parameter measuring the asymptotic rate of convergence. In applications, the transition matrix $P$ may be unknown, yet one sample of the chain up to a fixed time $n$ may be observed. We consider here the problem of estimating $γ$ fro…

We consider the problem of estimating from sample paths the absolute spectral gap $γ_*$ of a reversible, irreducible and aperiodic Markov chain $(X_t)_{t \in \mathbb{N}}$ over a finite state space $Ω$. We propose the ${\tt UCPI}$ (Upper Confidence Power Iteration) algorithm for this problem, a low-complexity algorithm …

Study non-negative curvature Markov chains, proving entropy contraction.

Sampling the parameters of high-dimensional Continuous Time Markov Chains (CTMC) is a challenging problem with important applications in many fields of applied statistics. In this work a recently proposed type of non-reversible rejection-free Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler, the Bouncy Particle Sampler (BPS), i…

Bayesian symbolic regression uncovers missing physics from data with uncertainty quantification.

We address the problem of estimating the mixing time of a Markov chain from a single trajectory of observations. Unlike most previous works which employed Hilbert space methods to estimate spectral gaps, we opt for an approach based on contraction with respect to total variation. Specifically, we estimate the contracti…

Paper improves Oja's algorithm for Markovian data streams.

A new two-step MH method for Bayesian EL computation.

Continuous time framework for discrete data denoising models.

Estimating the entropy based on data is one of the prototypical problems in distribution property testing and estimation. For estimating the Shannon entropy of a distribution on $S$ elements with independent samples, [Paninski2004] showed that the sample complexity is sublinear in $S$, and [Valiant--Valiant2011] showed…

This paper concerns error bounds for recursive equations subject to Markovian disturbances. Motivating examples abound within the fields of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), and many of these algorithms can be interpreted as special cases of stochastic approximation (SA). It is argued tha…

New algorithm improves sampling from constrained spaces.

MetFlow combines MCMC and VI efficiently for better inference.

New algorithm broadens BART models applicability.

We propose a novel reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulated annealing algorithm to optimize radial basis function (RBF) networks. This algorithm enables us to maximize the joint posterior distribution of the network parameters and the number of basis functions. It performs a global search in the joint …

Enhances RJMCMC efficiency with non-linear transport-based proposals.

In this paper we build on previous work which uses inferences techniques, in particular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, to solve parameterized control problems. We propose a number of modifications in order to make this approach more practical in general, higher-dimensional spaces. We first introduce a new tar…

The paper extends game theory using Hodge theory on graphs.

This paper studies the optimal VIX futures trading problems under a regime-switching model. We consider the VIX as mean reversion dynamics with dependence on the regime that switches among a finite number of states. For the trading strategies, we analyze the timings and sequences of the investor's market participation,…

Directed acyclic graphs are the basic representation of the structure underlying Bayesian networks, which represent multivariate probability distributions. In many practical applications, such as the reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks, not only the estimation of model parameters but the reconstruction of t…

The book covers scalable MCMC methods for Bayesian learning.

A new Monte Carlo sampling method derived from reverse diffusion.