Bayesian conjugate gradients [open for discussion]
When fishing for an illustration for this post on Google, I came upon this Bayesian methods for hackers cover, a book about which I have no clue whatsoever (!) but that mentions probabilistic programming. Which serves as a perfect (?!) introduction to the call for discussion in Bayesian Analysis of the incoming Bayesian conjugate gradient method by Jon Cockayne, Chris Oates (formerly Warwick), Ilse Ipsen and Mark Girolami (still partially Warwick!). Since indeed the paper is about probabilistic numerics à la Mark and co-authors. Surprisingly dealing with solving the deterministic equation Ax=b by Bayesian methods. The method produces a posterior distribution on the solution x⁰, given a fixed computing effort, which makes it pertain to the anytime algorithms. It also relates to an earlier 2015 paper by Christian Hennig where the posterior is on A⁻¹ rather than x⁰ (which is quite a surprising if valid approach to the problem!) The computing effort is translated here in computations of projections of random projections of Ax, which can be made compatible with conjugate gradient steps. Interestingly, the choice of the prior on x is quite important, including setting a low or high convergence rate… Deadline is August 04!
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