Hamiltonian Monte Carlo Acceleration Using Surrogate Functions with Random Bases

For big data analysis, high computational cost for Bayesian methods often limits their applications in practice. In recent years, there have been many attempts to improve computational efficiency of Bayesian inference. Here we propose an efficient and scalable computational technique for a state-of-the-art Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, namely, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC). The key idea is to explore and exploit the structure and regularity in parameter space for the underlying probabilistic model to construct an effective approximation of its geometric properties. To this end, we build a surrogate function to approximate the target distribution using properly chosen random bases and an efficient optimization process. The resulting method provides a flexible, scalable, and efficient sampling algorithm, which converges to the correct target distribution. We show that by choosing the basis functions and optimization process differently, our method can be related to other approaches for the construction of surrogate functions such as generalized additive models or Gaussian process models. Experiments based on simulated and real data show that our approach leads to substantially more efficient sampling algorithms compared to existing state-of-the art methods

Vector Approximate Message Passing for the Generalized Linear Model

The generalized linear model (GLM), where a random vector $\boldsymbol{x}$ is observed through a noisy, possibly nonlinear, function of a linear transform output $\boldsymbol{z}=\boldsymbol{Ax}$, arises in a range of applications such as robust regression, binary classification, quantized compressed sensing, phase retrieval, photon-limited imaging, and inference from neural spike trains. When $\boldsymbol{A}$ is large and i.i.d. Gaussian, the generalized approximate message passing (GAMP) algorithm is an efficient means of MAP or marginal inference, and its performance can be rigorously characterized by a scalar state evolution. For general $\boldsymbol{A}$, though, GAMP can misbehave. Damping and sequential-updating help to robustify GAMP, but their effects are limited. Recently, a "vector AMP" (VAMP) algorithm was proposed for additive white Gaussian noise channels. VAMP extends AMP's guarantees from i.i.d. Gaussian $\boldsymbol{A}$ to the larger class of rotationally invariant $\boldsymbol{A}$. In this paper, we show how VAMP can be extended to the GLM. Numerical experiments show that the proposed GLM-VAMP is much more robust to ill-conditioning in $\boldsymbol{A}$ than damped GAMP

Gaussian Process Conditional Copulas with Applications to Financial Time Series

The estimation of dependencies between multiple variables is a central problem in the analysis of financial time series. A common approach is to express these dependencies in terms of a copula function. Typically the copula function is assumed to be constant but this may be inaccurate when there are covariates that could have a large influence on the dependence structure of the data. To account for this, a Bayesian framework for the estimation of conditional copulas is proposed. In this framework the parameters of a copula are non-linearly related to some arbitrary conditioning variables. We evaluate the ability of our method to predict time-varying dependencies on several equities and currencies and observe consistent performance gains compared to static copula models and other time-varying copula methods

Variational Inference in Nonconjugate Models

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 derived and in closed form. However, many models of interest---like the correlated topic model and Bayesian logistic regression---are nonconjuate. In these models, mean-field methods cannot be directly applied and practitioners have had to develop variational algorithms on a case-by-case basis. In this paper, we develop two generic methods for nonconjugate models, Laplace variational inference and delta method variational inference. Our methods have several advantages: they allow for easily derived variational algorithms with a wide class of nonconjugate models; they extend and unify some of the existing algorithms that have been derived for specific models; and they work well on real-world datasets. We studied our methods on the correlated topic model, Bayesian logistic regression, and hierarchical Bayesian logistic regression

A Computationally Efficient Projection-Based Approach for Spatial Generalized Linear Mixed Models

Inference for spatial generalized linear mixed models (SGLMMs) for high-dimensional non-Gaussian spatial data is computationally intensive. The computational challenge is due to the high-dimensional random effects and because Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for these models tend to be slow mixing. Moreover, spatial confounding inflates the variance of fixed effect (regression coefficient) estimates. Our approach addresses both the computational and confounding issues by replacing the high-dimensional spatial random effects with a reduced-dimensional representation based on random projections. Standard MCMC algorithms mix well and the reduced-dimensional setting speeds up computations per iteration. We show, via simulated examples, that Bayesian inference for this reduced-dimensional approach works well both in terms of inference as well as prediction, our methods also compare favorably to existing "reduced-rank" approaches. We also apply our methods to two real world data examples, one on bird count data and the other classifying rock types

Generalized Approximate Survey Propagation for High-Dimensional Estimation

In Generalized Linear Estimation (GLE) problems, we seek to estimate a signal that is observed through a linear transform followed by a component-wise, possibly nonlinear and noisy, channel. In the Bayesian optimal setting, Generalized Approximate Message Passing (GAMP) is known to achieve optimal performance for GLE. However, its performance can significantly degrade whenever there is a mismatch between the assumed and the true generative model, a situation frequently encountered in practice. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, named Generalized Approximate Survey Propagation (GASP), for solving GLE in the presence of prior or model mis-specifications. As a prototypical example, we consider the phase retrieval problem, where we show that GASP outperforms the corresponding GAMP, reducing the reconstruction threshold and, for certain choices of its parameters, approaching Bayesian optimal performance. Furthermore, we present a set of State Evolution equations that exactly characterize the dynamics of GASP in the high-dimensional limit