We review three algorithms for Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Two of them are variational inference algorithms: Variational Bayesian inference and Online Variational Bayesian inference and one is Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm -- Collapsed Gibbs sampling. We compare their time complexity and performance.…
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48 results for “variational algorithms”
Variational inference methods for latent variable statistical models have gained popularity because they are relatively fast, can handle large data sets, and have deterministic convergence guarantees. However, in practice it is unclear whether the fixed point identified by the variational inference algorithm is a local…
A new particle algorithm improves mean-field variational inference.
problem Efficiently approximating nonparametric posterior distributions in machine learning.
method Introduces PArticle VI (PAVI), a novel particle-based algorithm for nonparametric mean-field approximation.
result Obtains non-asymptotic error bounds for PArticle VI, providing the first end-to-end guarantee for particle-based MFVI.
Combines variational and evolutionary optimization for generative models.
problem Optimizing generative models with discrete latent variables.
method Truncated posteriors as variational distributions, evolutionary algorithms applied to variational parameters.
result Evolutionary algorithms effectively optimize variational bounds for generative models.
Variational inference is a scalable technique for approximate Bayesian inference. Deriving variational inference algorithms requires tedious model-specific calculations; this makes it difficult to automate. We propose an automatic variational inference algorithm, automatic differentiation variational inference (ADVI). …
Clarifies EM algorithm and variational Bayesian inference concepts.
problem Gaps in AI literature understanding of EM and variational concepts.
method Tutorial presentation of EM algorithm, variational Bayesian inference, and autoencoded variational Bayes.
result Establishes clear links between EM and variational methods.
A new optimization algorithm for Gaussian Variational Inference on precision matrices.
problem Complex models with positive definite constraints on covariance matrices.
method Manifold Gaussian Variational Bayes (MGVBP) with natural gradient updates.
result Empirically validated as a feasible and efficient solution for VI in complex models.
New clustering algorithm for time series data using RNN and variational Bayes.
problem Lack of generative model-based clustering methods for time series data.
method Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with variational Bayes method.
result Robustness against phase shift, amplitude, and signal length variations.
Ideas from the image processing literature have recently motivated a new set of clustering algorithms that rely on the concept of total variation. While these algorithms perform well for bi-partitioning tasks, their recursive extensions yield unimpressive results for multiclass clustering tasks. This paper presents a g…
We introduce the variational filtering EM algorithm, a simple, general-purpose method for performing variational inference in dynamical latent variable models using information from only past and present variables, i.e. filtering. The algorithm is derived from the variational objective in the filtering setting and cons…
Boosting Variational Inference improves posterior approximations with adaptive step-sizes.
problem Limited resources hinder the widespread adoption of Boosting Variational Inference.
method Characterized global curvature impact, introduced local curvature, and developed an approximate backtracking algorithm.
result New theoretical convergence rates and experimental validation demonstrate improved performance.
The study provides statistical guarantees for Bayesian variational boosting.
problem Statistical and convergence issues in variational boosting.
method Proposed a novel variational family and a functional Frank-Wolfe optimization algorithm.
result Demonstrated stochastic boundedness and provided convergence rate for boosting iterates.
Develops a new framework for analyzing MFVI algorithms.
problem Analyzes mean field variational inference (MFVI) formulations.
method Inspired by variational Bayesian formulations, represents MFVI problem in three ways: gradient flow, Fokker-Planck-like equations, and diffusion process.
result Establishes rigorous guarantees for convergence of time-discretized coordinate ascent variational inference algorithms.
We introduce local expectation gradients which is a general purpose stochastic variational inference algorithm for constructing stochastic gradients through sampling from the variational distribution. This algorithm divides the problem of estimating the stochastic gradients over multiple variational parameters into sma…
Improved confidence interval estimation with control variates.
problem Estimating confidence intervals with minimal samples.
method Designing an estimation algorithm using control variates and leveraging order statistics.
result Improved asymptotic efficiency compared to existing algorithms.
Denoising Diffusion Variational Inference: Diffusion Models as Expressive Variational Posteriorscs.LG
DDVI uses diffusion models for variational inference, improving latent variable model performance.
problem Improving variational inference in latent variable models.
method Introduces diffusion-based variational posteriors trained with a regularized ELBO.
result Outperforms alternative variational posteriors on various benchmarks and a biology task.
Paper uses DBSCAN variation to detect ship anomalies.
problem Detecting anomalous ship behavior.
method Variation of DBSCAN algorithm applied to AIS data.
result Alternative anomaly metric is more statistically informative.
New algorithms accelerate SVGD convergence using deep unfolding.
problem Improving the speed of SVGD convergence.
method Integrating deep unfolding into SVGD for parameter learning.
result Proposed algorithms achieve faster convergence in various tasks.
Mean-field variational methods are widely used for approximate posterior inference in many probabilistic models. In a typical application, mean-field methods approximately compute the posterior with a coordinate-ascent optimization algorithm. When the model is conditionally conjugate, the coordinate updates are easily …
This paper presents a variational Bayesian kernel selection (VBKS) algorithm for sparse Gaussian process regression (SGPR) models. In contrast to existing GP kernel selection algorithms that aim to select only one kernel with the highest model evidence, our proposed VBKS algorithm considers the kernel as a random varia…
Learning Model Reparametrizations: Implicit Variational Inference by Fitting MCMC distributionsstat.ML
We introduce a new algorithm for approximate inference that combines reparametrization, Markov chain Monte Carlo and variational methods. We construct a very flexible implicit variational distribution synthesized by an arbitrary Markov chain Monte Carlo operation and a deterministic transformation that can be optimized…
New path-gradient estimator for continuous normalizing flows.
problem Limitation of simple Gaussian variational distributions in complex applications.
method Proposed a path-gradient estimator for continuous normalizing flows.
result Empirical evidence of superior performance of the new estimator.
Unified analysis of efficient local training methods for distributed variational inequalities.
problem Efficient distributed/federated learning for variational inequality problems.
method Unified convergence analysis of communication-efficient local training methods.
result First local gradient descent-accent algorithms with improved communication complexity.
New algorithm uses control variates to improve multi-armed bandit performance.
problem Stochastic multi-armed bandits with auxiliary reward information.
method Developed UCB-CV algorithm using control variates for mean estimation.
result UCB-CV algorithm provides tighter confidence bounds and smaller variance.
Improved sampling method using regularized Stein Variational Gradient Flow.
problem Improving the accuracy of sampling methods in machine learning.
method Proposed Regularized Stein Variational Gradient Flow to interpolate between SVGD and Wasserstein Gradient Flow.
result Established theoretical properties and provided preliminary numerical evidence of improved performance.
Algorithm improves variational inference in Wasserstein distance.
problem Improving variational inference methods for complex models.
method Wasserstein contraction analysis of coordinate ascent.
result General and sharp convergence guarantees for various models.
Variational inference is an umbrella term for algorithms which cast Bayesian inference as optimization. Classically, variational inference uses the Kullback-Leibler divergence to define the optimization. Though this divergence has been widely used, the resultant posterior approximation can suffer from undesirable stati…
Black box variational inference allows researchers to easily prototype and evaluate an array of models. Recent advances allow such algorithms to scale to high dimensions. However, a central question remains: How to specify an expressive variational distribution that maintains efficient computation? To address this, we …
VMBPO optimizes model and policy jointly using variational lower-bound.
problem Data efficiency in RL with biased simulated data.
method Formulate variational objective function, use EM, iteratively improve model and policy.
result VMBPO is more sample-efficient and robust than model-free algorithms.
A new method solves variational inequality problems with multiple constraints without needing optimal Lagrange multipliers.
problem Solving variational inequality problems with multiple functional constraints efficiently.
method Constrained Gradient Method (CGM) for Minty variational inequality problems.
result The Constrained Gradient Method achieves complexity similar to projection-based methods but with cheaper oracles.
We propose a novel adaptive importance sampling algorithm which incorporates Stein variational gradient decent algorithm (SVGD) with importance sampling (IS). Our algorithm leverages the nonparametric transforms in SVGD to iteratively decrease the KL divergence between our importance proposal and the target distributio…
Variational MCMCcs.LG
We propose a new class of learning algorithms that combines variational approximation and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation. Naive algorithms that use the variational approximation as proposal distribution can perform poorly because this approximation tends to underestimate the true variance and other features…
This study examines how randomness affects machine learning model performance.
problem The impact of randomness on machine learning model performance.
method Empirical study comparing randomness in model training and dataset partitioning.
result Randomness in model training causes more variation in FFNNs than tree-based methods.
Paper optimizes classification of distributions using Wasserstein metric.
problem Classifying instances represented by distributions on a vector space.
method Maximizing Fisher's ratio in the Wasserstein metric space through iterative algorithm.
result The method enhances classification performance and is robust to variations in distribution summaries.
Stochastic variational inference for collapsed models has recently been successfully applied to large scale topic modelling. In this paper, we propose a stochastic collapsed variational inference algorithm in the sequential data setting. Our algorithm is applicable to both finite hidden Markov models and hierarchical D…
Quantum annealing improves VB inference, avoiding local minima.
problem Variational Bayes inference stuck in local minima.
method Quantum annealing approach to VB inference.
result Quantum annealing variational Bayes (QAVB) outperforms classical VB.
NVA combines variational posteriors, annealing, and natural-gradient learning for multimodal optimization.
problem Finding multiple global and local modes in nonconvex objectives.
method NVA integrates variational posteriors, annealing, and natural-gradient learning.
result NVA outperforms gradient descent and evolution strategies on simulations and real-world problems.
The paper provides guarantees for a tangent transform algorithm in logistic regression models.
problem Finding theoretical guarantees for statistical optimality and algorithmic convergence in non-conjugate models.
method Exploiting convex duality and minorizing the marginal likelihood, the paper derives non-asymptotic upper bounds and convergence guarantees for a tangent transform algorithm in logistic regression models.
result The tangent transform algorithm is shown to be locally asymptotically stable without assumptions on the data-generating process.
Variational Bayesian inference and (collapsed) Gibbs sampling are the two important classes of inference algorithms for Bayesian networks. Both have their advantages and disadvantages: collapsed Gibbs sampling is unbiased but is also inefficient for large count values and requires averaging over many samples to reduce …
We present a family of expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms for binary and negative-binomial logistic regression, drawing a sharp connection with the variational-Bayes algorithm of Jaakkola and Jordan (2000). Indeed, our results allow a version of this variational-Bayes approach to be re-interpreted as a true EM al…
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…
Variational inference lies at the core of many state-of-the-art algorithms. To improve the approximation of the posterior beyond parametric families, it was proposed to include MCMC steps into the variational lower bound. In this work we explore this idea using steps of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm, an e…
Proximal algorithms applied to current deformation into cycles.
problem Deformation of de Rham currents into cycles.
method Proximal algorithms, total variation denoising for differential forms.
result Calibrated cycles constructed in calibrated manifolds.
The paper compares unrolling and bilevel optimization for learning variational models.
problem Learning variational models in supervised learning.
method Analyzes unrolling and bilevel optimization approaches for variational models.
result Unrolling can be better than bilevel optimization, but performance depends on parameters.
The paper develops efficient algorithms for variational inference with mixtures of isotropic Gaussians.
problem Efficiently approximating multimodal Bayesian posteriors.
method Develops a variational framework and efficient algorithms for mixtures of isotropic Gaussians.
result The approach provides accurate approximations of multimodal Bayesian posteriors while being memory and computationally efficient.
We introduce TrustVI, a fast second-order algorithm for black-box variational inference based on trust-region optimization and the reparameterization trick. At each iteration, TrustVI proposes and assesses a step based on minibatches of draws from the variational distribution. The algorithm provably converges to a stat…
This paper provides a unifying theoretical framework for stochastic optimization algorithms by means of a latent stochastic variational problem. Using techniques from stochastic control, the solution to the variational problem is shown to be equivalent to that of a Forward Backward Stochastic Differential Equation (FBS…
BSVGD improves sampling for multimodal distributions using branching.
problem Sampling from multimodal distributions.
method Random branching in Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD).
result Theoretical convergence guarantee and empirical validation.