The paper introduces structured variational families to improve scalability in black-box variational inference.
problem Scalability issues in black-box variational inference, especially for large datasets and hierarchical models.
method Developed structured variational families that achieve better iteration complexity of O(N) compared to full-rank families.
result Structured variational families can achieve better scaling with respect to dataset size N, improving iteration complexity from O(N^2) to O(N).
Many recent advances in large scale probabilistic inference rely on variational methods. The success of variational approaches depends on (i) formulating a flexible parametric family of distributions, and (ii) optimizing the parameters to find the member of this family that most closely approximates the exact posterior…
ASVI automates variational inference for complex models.
problem Efficient variational inference for complex probabilistic models.
method Automatic structured variational inference (ASVI) using convex updates.
result ASVI outperforms other methods on a wide range of problems.
New Bayesian neural network model improves performance and compresses networks.
problem Improving predictive performance and compressing neural networks.
method Proposes a new variational family with radial and directional components.
result Improves predictive performance and yields compressed networks.
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.
New variational family approximates non-Gaussian posteriors efficiently.
problem Approximating non-Gaussian posteriors in Bayesian models.
method Copula-like variational distributions with efficient sampling and normalizing flows.
result The proposed method performs comparably to state-of-the-art approximations.
VIND reduces gradient variance for non-Gaussian approximations.
problem Improving Variational Inference for non-Gaussian distributions.
method Extends reparameterization trick to exponential families using numerical derivatives and tight coupling.
result Reduces gradient variance, leading to better posterior approximations.
Variational inference for latent variable models is prevalent in various machine learning problems, typically solved by maximizing the Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO) of the true data likelihood with respect to a variational distribution. However, freely enriching the family of variational distribution is challenging since…
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…
New variational flows improve Monte Carlo and normalization tasks.
problem Intractable global optimum in expressive variational families.
method Constructing asymptotically exact variational flows from involutive MCMC kernels.
result Provable total variation convergence of new variational families.
New method improves variational inference for hierarchical models.
problem Limited expressivity of variational distributions in Bayesian models.
method Importance weighted hierarchical variational inference.
result Superior performance in experiments compared to existing methods.
Symmetry helps VI recover certain statistics.
problem Understanding how symmetry in variational inference affects the recovery of statistics.
method Developed a general theory of symmetry-induced statistic recovery in variational inference.
result Symmetry can force the recovery of certain statistics in VI, even under model misspecification.
Improves variational inference for sparse models using mixtures of exponential families.
problem Intractability of posterior distributions in Bayesian sparse models.
method Flexible mean field variational inference using mixtures of non-overlapping exponential families.
result Mixtures of exponential families with non-overlapping support form an exponential family, enabling analytical updates.
Study on new Monge-Ampère functionals and their variational problems.
problem Existence and uniqueness of solutions for nonlinear eigenvalue problems.
method Introduction of a family of real Monge-Ampère functionals and proving Sobolev type inequalities.
result Existence of solutions for a nonlinear eigenvalue problem.
New framework improves variational inference for high-dimensional posteriors.
problem Challenges in choosing variational objectives and approximating families for high-dimensional posteriors.
method Conceptual framework and experimental tools to understand and optimize variational objectives and families.
result For moderate-to-high-dimensional posteriors, exclusive KL divergence is recommended due to optimization ease; for low-dimensional, heavy-tailed variational families are effective.
The paper proves consistency of GVI posteriors under minimal conditions.
problem Consistency of generalized variational inference posteriors.
method Proves consistency using Γ-convergence theory. result GVI posteriors are consistent and collapse to the population-optimal parameter value.
We prove an equivariant implicit function theorem for variational problems that are invariant under a varying symmetry group (corresponding to a bundle of Lie groups). Motivated by applications to families of geometric variational problems lacking regularity, several non-smooth extensions of the result are discussed. A…
The paper generalizes convex and star-shaped concepts to symplectic spaces and studies variational problems.
problem Generalizing convex and star-shaped concepts to symplectic vector spaces.
method Study of variational problems for symplectically convex and star-shaped curves.
result Extremal points of the variational problem are rigid multiply traversed conics for a range of parameters.
Geometric framework analyzes bias in variational inference for posterior functionals.
problem Analyzing the bias of posterior functionals under variational approximations.
method Developed a geometric framework to evaluate the bias of posterior functionals using the variational tangent space.
result The leading-order bias of a posterior functional is determined by its component orthogonal to the variational tangent space.
Semi-Implicit Variational Inference (SIVI) is improved with SIVI-SM using score matching.
problem Intractable densities in variational distributions hinder SIVI training.
method SIVI-SM uses score matching to handle intractable densities in a minimax formulation.
result SIVI-SM outperforms ELBO-based SIVI methods in Bayesian inference tasks.
BBVI converges nearly dimensionally independent for log-concave targets.
problem Efficiently optimizing variational parameters in high-dimensional spaces.
method Proved convergence rate of BBVI with reparametrization gradient for log-concave targets.
result BBVI converges with nearly independent dimension dependence for log-concave targets.
New method for fast inference in diffusion models.
problem Intractable probabilistic inference in diffusion models.
method Variational Gaussian Process, exponential family description, convex optimization.
result Improved fast algorithm for learning model parameters.
We propose a family of variational approximations to Bayesian posterior distributions, called α-VB, with provable statistical guarantees. The standard variational approximation is a special case of α-VB with α=1. When α∈(0,1], a novel class of variational inequalities are developed for linking the Bayes risk …
Variational Inference shows promise for Bayesian GARCH model estimation.
problem Bayesian estimation of GARCH-family models using Monte Carlo sampling.
method Variational Inference as an alternative to Monte Carlo sampling.
result Variational Inference is a reliable and competitive method for Bayesian learning in GARCH-like models.
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.
We present a general method for deriving collapsed variational inference algo- rithms for probabilistic models in the conjugate exponential family. Our method unifies many existing approaches to collapsed variational inference. Our collapsed variational inference leads to a new lower bound on the marginal likelihood. W…
Unified framework for understanding TVO and improving model learning.
problem Improving the tightness and efficiency of variational inference bounds.
method Exponential family interpretation and equal spacing in moment parameters.
result Unified framework and improved gradient estimator for TVO.
The paper improves guarantees for VI in symmetric cases.
problem Approximating intractable densities via VI with misspecified families.
method Extends previous robust VI results to wider divergences and non-log-concave targets.
result Guarantees for exact recovery of target mean and correlation matrix under various conditions.
Variational methods are widely used for approximate posterior inference. However, their use is typically limited to families of distributions that enjoy particular conjugacy properties. To circumvent this limitation, we propose a family of variational approximations inspired by nonparametric kernel density estimation. …
We develop a general variational inference method that preserves dependency among the latent variables. Our method uses copulas to augment the families of distributions used in mean-field and structured approximations. Copulas model the dependency that is not captured by the original variational distribution, and thus …
UBVI improves variational inference by preventing degeneracy and improving scalability.
problem Degeneracy and scalability issues in variational inference.
method Exploits Hellinger metric geometry to prevent degeneracy, simplifies weight optimization, and uses scalable exponential family mixture components.
result Output of UBVI converges to best possible approximation in any mixture family, even when misspecified.
Improved Bayesian uncertainty quantification using variational bagging.
problem Inefficient and underestimating uncertainty in mean-field variational Bayes.
method Integrates bagging with variational Bayes for improved inference.
result Bagged variational posterior provides proper uncertainty quantification.
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.
In this paper, we define the eta cochain form and prove its regularity when the kernel of a family of Dirac operators is a vector bundle. We decompose the eta form as a pairing of the eta cochain form with the Chern character of an idempotent matrix and we also decompose the Chern character of the index bundle for a fi…
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.
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…
We extend natural-gradient methods to mixtures of exponential-family distributions, improving inference speed.
problem Complex, multimodal posterior distributions are difficult to approximate with simple exponential-family distributions.
method We use minimal conditional-EF representations and derive simple natural-gradient updates.
result Our natural-gradient method converges faster than black-box methods with reparameterization gradients.
The paper calculates the second variation of energy functions for families of canonically polarized manifolds.
problem Computing the second variation of energy functions for families of canonically polarized manifolds.
method Analyzing the Dirichlet energy of maps between fibers and using harmonic maps.
result The energy function is plurisubharmonic under certain curvature conditions.
Study on complex variation of Hodge structures for non-Kähler manifolds.
problem Understanding complex variation of Hodge structures for non-Kähler manifolds.
method Analyzes holomorphic families of compact complex manifolds with specific cohomology properties.
result Period map is holomorphic and transversal under given conditions.
Mixture model-based clustering has become an increasingly popular data analysis technique since its introduction over fifty years ago, and is now commonly utilized within a family setting. Families of mixture models arise when the component parameters, usually the component covariance (or scale) matrices, are decompose…
A new method infers neural trajectories in real-time, improving experimental design.
problem Real-time inference of neural trajectories for immediate feedback.
method Exponential family variational Kalman filter (eVKF) for online learning.
result eVKF achieves competitive performance on synthetic and real-world data.
Develops a variational method for ultrametric phylogenetic trees.
problem Accurate and efficient approximation of posterior distributions over trees in Bayesian phylogenetics.
method Variational Bayesian approach based on coalescent times of a single-linkage clustering.
result Achieves competitive accuracy with significantly fewer gradient evaluations.
The study proves rigidity for mixed Hodge structures and applies to curve families.
problem Rigidity of period maps for mixed Hodge structures.
method Holomorphic bisectional curvature approach.
result Establishes rigidity in various cases, including curve families.
BBVI with STL converges geometrically under perfect specification, with quadratic variance bound.
problem Convergence rate of BBVI with STL estimator.
method Proved geometric convergence rate with quadratic variance bound for BBVI with STL estimator.
result BBVI with STL converges geometrically under perfect variational family specification.
Guarantees convergence for black-box variational inference without modifications.
problem Convergence guarantees for black-box variational inference.
method Analysis of log-smooth posterior densities, location-scale variational family, and convergence rates of algorithm design choices.
result Proximal stochastic gradient descent fixes suboptimal convergence rates and achieves strongest known guarantees.
New framework improves stochastic optimization for variational inference.
problem Improving variational posterior approximations in high-dimensional models.
method Developed a robust stochastic optimization framework using Markov chains.
result Demonstrated improved accuracy and robustness across diverse models.
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…
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.