conditioning an algorithm

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2021 by xi'an

A question of interest on X validated: given a (possibly black-box) algorithm simulating from a joint distribution with density [wrt a continuous measure] p(z,y) (how) is it possible to simulate from the conditional p(y|z⁰)? Which reminded me of a recent paper by Lindqvist et al. on conditional Monte Carlo. Which zooms on the simulation of a sample X given the value of a sufficient statistic, T(X)=t, revolving about pivotal quantities and inversions à la fiducial statistics, following an earlier Biometrika paper by Lindqvist & Taraldsen, in 2005. The idea is to write

$X=\chi(U,\theta)\qquad T(X)=\tau(U,\theta)$

where U has a distribution that depends on θ, to solve τ(u,θ)=t in θ for a given pair (u,t) with solution θ(u,t) and to generate u conditional on this solution. But this requires getting “under the hood” of the algorithm to such an extent as not answering the original question, or being open to other solutions using the expression for the joint density p(z,y)… In a purely black box situation, ABC appears as the natural if approximate solution.

Introduction to Sequential Monte Carlo [book review]

Posted in Books, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2021 by xi'an

[Warning: Due to many CoI, from Nicolas being a former PhD student of mine, to his being a current colleague at CREST, to Omiros being co-deputy-editor for Biometrika, this review will not be part of my CHANCE book reviews.]

My friends Nicolas Chopin and Omiros Papaspiliopoulos wrote in 2020 An Introduction to Sequential Monte Carlo (Springer) that took several years to achieve and which I find remarkably coherent in its unified presentation. Particles filters and more broadly sequential Monte Carlo have expended considerably in the last 25 years and I find it difficult to keep track of the main advances given the expansive and heterogeneous literature. The book is also quite careful in its mathematical treatment of the concepts and, while the Feynman-Kac formalism is somewhat scary, it provides a careful introduction to the sampling techniques relating to state-space models and to their asymptotic validation. As an introduction it does not go to the same depths as Pierre Del Moral’s 2004 book or our 2005 book (Cappé et al.). But it also proposes a unified treatment of the most recent developments, including SMC² and ABC-SMC. There is even a chapter on sequential quasi-Monte Carlo, naturally connected to Mathieu Gerber’s and Nicolas Chopin’s 2015 Read Paper. Another significant feature is the articulation of the practical part around a massive Python package called particles [what else?!]. While the book is intended as a textbook, and has been used as such at ENSAE and in other places, there are only a few exercises per chapter and they are not necessarily manageable (as Exercise 7.1, the unique exercise for the very short Chapter 7.) The style is highly pedagogical, take for instance Chapter 10 on the various particle filters, with a detailed and separate analysis of the input, algorithm, and output of each of these. Examples are only strategically used when comparing methods or illustrating convergence. While the MCMC chapter (Chapter 15) is surprisingly small, it is actually an introducing of the massive chapter on particle MCMC (and a teaser for an incoming Papaspiloulos, Roberts and Tweedie, a slow-cooking dish that has now been baking for quite a while!).

estimation of a normal mean matrix

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2021 by xi'an

A few days ago, I noticed the paper Estimation under matrix quadratic loss and matrix superharmonicity by Takeru Matsuda and my friend Bill Strawderman had appeared in Biometrika. (Disclaimer: I was not involved in handling the submission!) This is a “classical” shrinkage estimation problem in that covariance matrix estimators are compared under under a quadratic loss, using Charles Stein’s technique of unbiased estimation of the risk is derived. The authors show that the Efron–Morris estimator is minimax. They also introduce superharmonicity for matrix-variate functions towards showing that generalized Bayes estimator with respect to a matrix superharmonic priors are minimax., including a generalization of Stein’s prior. Superharmonicity that relates to (much) earlier results by Ed George (1986), Mary-Ellen Bock (1988),  Dominique Fourdrinier, Bill Strawderman, and Marty Wells (1998). (All of whom I worked with in the 1980’s and 1990’s! in Rouen, Purdue, and Cornell). This paper also made me realise Dominique, Bill, and Marty had published a Springer book on Shrinkage estimators a few years ago and that I had missed it..!

ratio of Gaussians

Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2021 by xi'an

Following (as usual) an X validated question, I came across two papers of George Marsaglia on the ratio of two arbitrary (i.e. unnormalised and possibly correlated) Normal variates. One was a 1965 JASA paper,

where the density of the ratio X/Y is exhibited, based on the fact that this random variable can always be represented as (a+ε)/(b+ξ) where ε,ξ are iid N(0,1) and a,b are constant. Surprisingly (?), this representation was challenged in a 1969 paper by David Hinkley (corrected in 1970).

And less surprisingly the ratio distribution behaves almost like a Cauchy, since its density is

meaning it is a two-component mixture of a Cauchy distribution, with weight exp(-a²/2-b²/2), and of an altogether more complex distribution ƒ². This is remarked by Marsaglia in the second 2006 paper, although the description of the second component remains vague, besides a possible bimodality. (It could have a mean, actually.) The density ƒ² however resembles (at least graphically) the generalised Normal inverse density I played with, eons ago.

approximation of Bayes Factors via mixing

Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on December 21, 2020 by xi'an

A [new version of a] paper by Chenguang Dai and Jun S. Liu got my attention when it appeared on arXiv yesterday. Due to its title which reminded me of a solution to the normalising constant approximation that we proposed in the 2010 nested sampling evaluation paper we wrote with Nicolas. Recovering bridge sampling—mentioned by Dai and Liu as an alternative to their approach rather than an early version—by a type of Charlie Geyer (1990-1994) trick. (The attached slides are taken from my MCMC graduate course, with a section on the approximation of Bayesian normalising constants I first wrote for a short course at Jim Berger’s 70th anniversary conference, in San Antonio.)

A difference with the current paper is that the authors “form a mixture distribution with an adjustable mixing parameter tuned through the Wang-Landau algorithm.” While we chose it by hand to achieve sampling from both components. The weight is updated by a simple (binary) Wang-Landau version, where the partition is determined by which component is simulated, ie by the mixture indicator auxiliary variable. Towards using both components on an even basis (à la Wang-Landau) and stabilising the resulting evaluation of the normalising constant. More generally, the strategy applies to a sequence of surrogate densities, which are chosen by variational approximations in the paper.