Variational Prediction simplifies Bayesian inference without test time costs.
problem Bayesian inference's computational costs and posterior predictive distribution marginalization.
method Variational Prediction learns a variational approximation to the posterior predictive distribution using a variational bound.
result Directly learns a variational approximation to the posterior predictive distribution without test time marginalization costs.
This work improves variational inference by reducing gradient variance.
problem Hard optimization of flexible variational distributions.
method Control variate based on quadratic approximation of the model's mean and covariance.
result Significant improvement in gradient variance and optimization convergence.
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.
SFSVI uses Gaussian mixtures to approximate neural network outputs for continual learning.
problem Learning new tasks without forgetting old ones in neural networks.
method Sequential function-space variational inference with Gaussian mixture approximation.
result Gaussian mixture SFSVI outperforms other methods in continual learning.
Improved image learning using elliptically contoured tensor-variate distributions.
problem Inadequate statistical analysis for tensor-valued data, especially with heavier or lighter tails.
method Developed a family of elliptically contoured tensor-variate distributions and derived their properties and procedures for estimation.
result Tensor-variate classification rules and tensor-on-tensor regression better predict and characterize data than TVN-based methods.
A new method learns posterior and predictive distributions together, reducing computational cost.
problem Sequential two-stage Bayesian inference is computationally expensive.
method Amortized variational inference targeting posterior-predictive distribution.
result Efficient online inference with more accurate predictive distributions.
Semi-implicit variational inference (SIVI) is introduced to expand the commonly used analytic variational distribution family, by mixing the variational parameter with a flexible distribution. This mixing distribution can assume any density function, explicit or not, as long as independent random samples can be generat…
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.
CDVI improves variational inference for survival analysis by considering censoring mechanisms.
problem Challenges in applying variational methods to survival data, especially the dependence on censoring.
method Censor-dependent variational inference (CDVI) tailored for latent variable models in survival analysis.
result Significant improvements in estimating individual survival distributions.
Improved VAE estimation from incomplete data using variational mixtures.
problem Estimating VAEs from incomplete data increases posterior complexity.
method Introducing variational mixtures based on finite and imputation distributions.
result Variational mixtures improve VAE estimation accuracy from incomplete data.
Analog BNNs perform similarly regardless of noise distribution shape.
problem Difficulty in precisely controlling noise distribution shape in analog devices.
method Used real device noise as the variational distribution in MFVI training.
result Predictive distributions converge to the same distribution regardless of noise shape.
Improved multimodal variational models capture more complex joint distributions.
problem Limited expressiveness of multimodal variational models.
method Used normalizing flows to approximate and transform a simple parametric joint posterior into a more complex one.
result The model improves on state-of-the-art multimodal variational methods on various tasks.
The paper analyzes variational autoencoders for state space models with risk bounds.
problem Analyzing the risk associated with variational autoencoders for state space models.
method Backward factorization of variational distributions to analyze excess risk, providing oracle inequalities and upper bounds.
result Explicit upper bounds on variational estimation error for state space models under strong mixing assumptions.
We study convergence rates of variational posterior distributions for nonparametric and high-dimensional inference. We formulate general conditions on prior, likelihood, and variational class that characterize the convergence rates. Under similar "prior mass and testing" conditions considered in the literature, the rat…
Develops a method to efficiently compute Wasserstein barycenters with variational distributions.
problem High computational burden in computing Wasserstein barycenters for high-dimensional and continuous settings.
method Introduces a variational distribution to approximate the continuous Wasserstein barycenter, reformulating the problem as an optimization with c-cyclical monotonicity.
result The method provides a tractable dual formulation for efficient computation of Wasserstein barycenters, demonstrated on real applications.
Improved inference for models with continuous latent variables.
problem Inference accuracy with traditional variational methods is limited.
method Reparameterized Variational Rejection Sampling (RVRS) using a proposal distribution with a reparameterized gradient estimator.
result RVRS offers a better trade-off between computational cost and inference fidelity.
This paper combines three techniques to reduce communications in distributed variational inequalities.
problem Efficiently communicating solutions in large-scale distributed variational inequalities.
method Combining similarity, compression, and local steps to reduce communication rounds and cost.
result Best theoretical guarantees of communication complexity and superior performance in adversarial learning experiments.
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…
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.
Paper develops a scalable distributed inference algorithm for sensor networks.
problem Efficient inference in intelligent sensor networks for location, tracking, and mapping.
method Distributed variational inference algorithm for continuous variables and large-scale data.
result Derives a separable lower bound for distributed variational inference with one-hop communication.
TM-VI uses flexible transformation models to approximate complex posteriors in Bayesian models.
problem Approximating complex posteriors in Bayesian models with limited flexibility.
method Transformation models for variational inference (TM-VI).
result TM-VI allows accurate approximation of complex posteriors in models with one parameter and works in a mean-field fashion for multi-parameter models.
EigenVI uses orthogonal function expansions for efficient variational inference.
problem Efficiently approximate complex distributions in variational inference.
method EigenVI constructs variational approximations using orthogonal function expansions, minimizing Fisher divergence.
result EigenVI provides more accurate approximations than existing methods for Gaussian BBVI.
PVI improves SIVI by directly optimizing ELBO without parametric assumptions.
problem Intractable variational densities in SIVI methods.
method Particle Variational Inference (PVI) using empirical measures to approximate optimal mixing distributions.
result PVI directly optimizes the ELBO and performs favorably compared to other SIVI methods.
Elliptical processes extend Gaussian models with heavier tails.
problem Regression and classification with non-Gaussian likelihoods or heavy tails.
method Spline normalizing flow for variational inference of elliptical distributions.
result Elliptical processes outperform Gaussian processes in non-Gaussian settings.
We develop a method to combine Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and variational inference (VI), leveraging the advantages of both inference approaches. Specifically, we improve the variational distribution by running a few MCMC steps. To make inference tractable, we introduce the variational contrastive divergence (VCD)…
The reparameterization gradient has become a widely used method to obtain Monte Carlo gradients to optimize the variational objective. However, this technique does not easily apply to commonly used distributions such as beta or gamma without further approximations, and most practical applications of the reparameterizat…
Variational Inference is a powerful tool in the Bayesian modeling toolkit, however, its effectiveness is determined by the expressivity of the utilized variational distributions in terms of their ability to match the true posterior distribution. In turn, the expressivity of the variational family is largely limited by …
We develop unbiased implicit variational inference (UIVI), a method that expands the applicability of variational inference by defining an expressive variational family. UIVI considers an implicit variational distribution obtained in a hierarchical manner using a simple reparameterizable distribution whose variational …
A new algorithm for optimizing probability distributions converges linearly.
problem Optimizing functionals over families of probability distributions.
method Variational transport: particle-based algorithm approximating Wasserstein gradient descent.
result Variational transport converges linearly to the global minimum of the objective functional.
Geometric Variational Inference improves efficiency in complex probability distributions.
problem Efficiently accessing information in non-linear and high-dimensional probability distributions.
method Geometric Variational Inference (geoVI) uses Riemannian geometry and the Fisher information metric to construct a coordinate transformation.
result geoVI provides a more efficient variational approximation by a normal distribution, demonstrated on various problems.
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.
Improved variational inference for geophysical inverse problems with data correction.
problem High computational cost and accuracy issues in Bayesian inference for geophysical inverse problems.
method Amortized variational inference with latent distribution correction using physics-based priors.
result Improved robustness of amortized variational inference under data distribution shifts.
Efficiently estimates online variational learning using importance sampling.
problem Online variational estimation in state-space models.
method Variational approach with Monte Carlo importance sampling.
result Proposed efficient algorithm for streaming data.
Improves NF for complex data distributions with multiple modes.
problem Difficulty in handling data distributions with multiple isolated modes.
method Proposes a new framework using variational latent representation to improve NF.
result Significantly more powerful for generating data distributions with multiple modes.
Particle-based variational inference offers a flexible way of approximating complex posterior distributions with a set of particles. In this paper we introduce a new particle-based variational inference method based on the theory of semi-discrete optimal transport. Instead of minimizing the KL divergence between the po…
To make decisions based on a model fit with auto-encoding variational Bayes (AEVB), practitioners often let the variational distribution serve as a surrogate for the posterior distribution. This approach yields biased estimates of the expected risk, and therefore leads to poor decisions for two reasons. First, the mode…
Improves gradient estimation for discrete distributions with variance reduction techniques.
problem Excessive variance in gradient estimation for discrete distributions.
method Stein operators for discrete distributions and control variates.
result Substantially lower variance in gradient estimation.
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.
Advances variational Bayesian neural networks using singular learning theory.
problem Discrepancies between predictive performance and variational objective in BNNs.
method Corrected asymptotic form of singular posterior distributions to inform variational family design.
result Improvements in variational free energy and generalization error with proposed normalizing flow.
Inspired by the seminal work on Stein Variational Inference and Stein Variational Policy Gradient, we derived a method to generate samples from the posterior variational parameter distribution by \textit{explicitly} minimizing the KL divergence to match the target distribution in an amortize fashion. Consequently, we a…
This paper speeds up inference in large hierarchical models.
problem Inference in large hierarchical models is slow and difficult.
method Amortized variational inference with shared parameters.
result Amortized inference is as accurate as a full-rank Gaussian but much faster.
FlowVAT improves variational inference for multi-modal distributions.
problem Mode-seeking behavior and collapse in variational inference for complex posteriors.
method Conditional tempering approach for normalizing flow variational inference.
result FlowVAT outperforms traditional and adaptive annealing methods in multi-modal distributions, finding more modes and achieving better ELBO values.
We propose a new method of measuring the third and fourth moments of return distribution based on quadratic variation method when the return process is assumed to have zero drift. The realized third and fourth moments variations computed from high frequency return series are good approximations to corresponding actual …
While stochastic variational inference is relatively well known for scaling inference in Bayesian probabilistic models, related methods also offer ways to circumnavigate the approximation of analytically intractable expectations. The key challenge in either setting is controlling the variance of gradient estimates: rec…
Two popular classes of methods for approximate inference are Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and variational inference. MCMC tends to be accurate if run for a long enough time, while variational inference tends to give better approximations at shorter time horizons. However, the amount of time needed for MCMC to exceed…
The paper studies stability of mean-field variational inference for log-concave distributions.
problem Stability of mean-field variational inference for log-concave distributions.
method Novel approach via linearized optimal transport, lifting non-convex problem to convex optimization over transport maps.
result Dimension-free Lipschitz continuity of the MFVI optimizer with respect to the target distribution, measured in 2-Wasserstein distance.
We introduce overdispersed black-box variational inference, a method to reduce the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator of the gradient in black-box variational inference. Instead of taking samples from the variational distribution, we use importance sampling to take samples from an overdispersed distribution in the s…
Proposes MIVI for efficient posterior estimation and design of MCMC transitions.
problem Efficiently estimating posterior distributions in constrained time.
method Combines variational inference and MCMC with a variational distribution and optimized Markov chain.
result Optimized Markov chain improves variational distribution and vice versa, leading to more accurate posteriors.