arXiv subjects

Christian A. Naesseth

Publications and source records attributed to Christian A. Naesseth.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Interacting Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo

We introduce interacting particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (iPMCMC), a PMCMC method based on an interacting pool of standard and conditional sequential Monte Carlo samplers. Like related methods, iPMCMC is a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler on an extended space. We present empirical results that show significant improvements in mixing rates relative to both non-interacting PMCMC samplers, and a single PMCMC sampler with an equivalent memory and computational budget. An additional advantage of the iPMCMC method is that it is suitable for distributed and multi-core architectures.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2016

High-dimensional Filtering using Nested Sequential Monte Carlo

Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods comprise one of the most successful approaches to approximate Bayesian filtering. However, SMC without good proposal distributions struggle in high dimensions. We propose nested sequential Monte Carlo (NSMC), a methodology that generalises the SMC framework by requiring only approximate, properly weighted, samples from the SMC proposal distribution, while still resulting in a correct SMC algorithm. This way we can exactly approximate the locally optimal proposal, and extend the class of models for which we can perform efficient inference using SMC. We show improved accuracy over other state-of-the-art methods on several spatio-temporal state space models.

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arXiv2016

Sequential Monte Carlo Methods for System Identification

One of the key challenges in identifying nonlinear and possibly non-Gaussian state space models (SSMs) is the intractability of estimating the system state. Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods, such as the particle filter (introduced more than two decades ago), provide numerical solutions to the nonlinear state estimation problems arising in SSMs. When combined with additional identification techniques, these algorithms provide solid solutions to the nonlinear system identification problem. We describe two general strategies for creating such combinations and discuss why SMC is a natural tool for implementing these strategies.

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arXiv2015

Nested Sequential Monte Carlo Methods

We propose nested sequential Monte Carlo (NSMC), a methodology to sample from sequences of probability distributions, even where the random variables are high-dimensional. NSMC generalises the SMC framework by requiring only approximate, properly weighted, samples from the SMC proposal distribution, while still resulting in a correct SMC algorithm. Furthermore, NSMC can in itself be used to produce such properly weighted samples. Consequently, one NSMC sampler can be used to construct an efficient high-dimensional proposal distribution for another NSMC sampler, and this nesting of the algorithm can be done to an arbitrary degree. This allows us to consider complex and high-dimensional models using SMC. We show results that motivate the efficacy of our approach on several filtering problems with dimensions in the order of 100 to 1 000.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2015

Divide-and-Conquer with Sequential Monte Carlo

We propose a novel class of Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms, appropriate for inference in probabilistic graphical models. This class of algorithms adopts a divide-and-conquer approach based upon an auxiliary tree-structured decomposition of the model of interest, turning the overall inferential task into a collection of recursively solved sub-problems. The proposed method is applicable to a broad class of probabilistic graphical models, including models with loops. Unlike a standard SMC sampler, the proposed Divide-and-Conquer SMC employs multiple independent populations of weighted particles, which are resampled, merged, and propagated as the method progresses. We illustrate empirically that this approach can outperform standard methods in terms of the accuracy of the posterior expectation and marginal likelihood approximations. Divide-and-Conquer SMC also opens up novel parallel implementation options and the possibility of concentrating the computational effort on the most challenging sub-problems. We demonstrate its performance on a Markov random field and on a hierarchical logistic regression problem.

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arXiv2014

Sequential Monte Carlo for Graphical Models

We propose a new framework for how to use sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms for inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGM). Via a sequential decomposition of the PGM we find a sequence of auxiliary distributions defined on a monotonically increasing sequence of probability spaces. By targeting these auxiliary distributions using SMC we are able to approximate the full joint distribution defined by the PGM. One of the key merits of the SMC sampler is that it provides an unbiased estimate of the partition function of the model. We also show how it can be used within a particle Markov chain Monte Carlo framework in order to construct high-dimensional block-sampling algorithms for general PGMs.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Capacity estimation of two-dimensional channels using Sequential Monte Carlo

We derive a new Sequential-Monte-Carlo-based algorithm to estimate the capacity of two-dimensional channel models. The focus is on computing the noiseless capacity of the 2-D one-infinity run-length limited constrained channel, but the underlying idea is generally applicable. The proposed algorithm is profiled against a state-of-the-art method, yielding more than an order of magnitude improvement in estimation accuracy for a given computation time.

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