Felix Lucka — Page 3

arXiv2014

Maximum-A-Posteriori Estimates in Linear Inverse Problems with Log-concave Priors are Proper Bayes Estimators

A frequent matter of debate in Bayesian inversion is the question, which of the two principle point-estimators, the maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) or the conditional mean (CM) estimate is to be preferred. As the MAP estimate corresponds to the solution given by variational regularization techniques, this is also a constant matter of debate between the two research areas. Following a theoretical argument - the Bayes cost formalism - the CM estimate is classically preferred for being the Bayes estimator for the mean squared error cost while the MAP estimate is classically discredited for being only asymptotically the Bayes estimator for the uniform cost function. In this article we present recent theoretical and computational observations that challenge this point of view, in particular for high-dimensional sparsity-promoting Bayesian inversion. Using Bregman distances, we present new, proper convex Bayes cost functions for which the MAP estimator is the Bayes estimator. We complement this finding by results that correct further common misconceptions about MAP estimates. In total, we aim to rehabilitate MAP estimates in linear inverse problems with log-concave priors as proper Bayes estimators.

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arXiv2012

Fast Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling for sparse Bayesian inference in high-dimensional inverse problems using L1-type priors

Sparsity has become a key concept for solving of high-dimensional inverse problems using variational regularization techniques. Recently, using similar sparsity-constraints in the Bayesian framework for inverse problems by encoding them in the prior distribution has attracted attention. Important questions about the relation between regularization theory and Bayesian inference still need to be addressed when using sparsity promoting inversion. A practical obstacle for these examinations is the lack of fast posterior sampling algorithms for sparse, high-dimensional Bayesian inversion: Accessing the full range of Bayesian inference methods requires being able to draw samples from the posterior probability distribution in a fast and efficient way. This is usually done using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling algorithms. In this article, we develop and examine a new implementation of a single component Gibbs MCMC sampler for sparse priors relying on L1-norms. We demonstrate that the efficiency of our Gibbs sampler increases when the level of sparsity or the dimension of the unknowns is increased. This property is contrary to the properties of the most commonly applied Metropolis-Hastings (MH) sampling schemes: We demonstrate that the efficiency of MH schemes for L1-type priors dramatically decreases when the level of sparsity or the dimension of the unknowns is increased. Practically, Bayesian inversion for L1-type priors using MH samplers is not feasible at all. As this is commonly believed to be an intrinsic feature of MCMC sampling, the performance of our Gibbs sampler also challenges common beliefs about the applicability of sample based Bayesian inference.

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