A. S. Mahani, Asad Hasan, Marshall Jiang, M. Sharabiani
The R package sns implements Stochastic Newton Sampler (SNS), a Metropolis-Hastings Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm where the proposal density function is a multivariate Gaussian based on a local, second-order Taylor series expansion of log-density. The mean of the proposal function is the full Newton step in Newton-Raphson optimization algorithm. Taking advantage of the local, multivariate geometry captured in log-density Hessian allows SNS to be more efficient than univariate samplers, approaching independent sampling as the density function increasingly resembles a multivariate Gaussian. SNS requires the log-density Hessian to be negative-definite everywhere in order to construct a valid proposal function. This property holds, or can be easily checked, for many GLM-like models. When initial point is far from density peak, running SNS in non-stochastic mode by taking the Newton step, augmented with with line search, allows the MCMC chain to converge to high-density areas faster. For high-dimensional problems, partitioning of state space into lower-dimensional subsets, and applying SNS to the subsets within a Gibbs sampling framework can significantly improve the mixing of SNS chains. In addition to the above strategies for improving convergence and mixing, sns offers diagnostics and visualization capabilities, as well as a function for sample-based calculation of Bayesian predictive posterior distributions.
{"title":"Stochastic Newton Sampler: R Package sns","authors":"A. S. Mahani, Asad Hasan, Marshall Jiang, M. Sharabiani","doi":"10.18637/JSS.V074.C02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18637/JSS.V074.C02","url":null,"abstract":"The R package sns implements Stochastic Newton Sampler (SNS), a Metropolis-Hastings Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm where the proposal density function is a multivariate Gaussian based on a local, second-order Taylor series expansion of log-density. The mean of the proposal function is the full Newton step in Newton-Raphson optimization algorithm. Taking advantage of the local, multivariate geometry captured in log-density Hessian allows SNS to be more efficient than univariate samplers, approaching independent sampling as the density function increasingly resembles a multivariate Gaussian. SNS requires the log-density Hessian to be negative-definite everywhere in order to construct a valid proposal function. This property holds, or can be easily checked, for many GLM-like models. When initial point is far from density peak, running SNS in non-stochastic mode by taking the Newton step, augmented with with line search, allows the MCMC chain to converge to high-density areas faster. For high-dimensional problems, partitioning of state space into lower-dimensional subsets, and applying SNS to the subsets within a Gibbs sampling framework can significantly improve the mixing of SNS chains. In addition to the above strategies for improving convergence and mixing, sns offers diagnostics and visualization capabilities, as well as a function for sample-based calculation of Bayesian predictive posterior distributions.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90604500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-02-01DOI: 10.1615/INT.J.UNCERTAINTYQUANTIFICATION.2015012467
R. Schöbi, B. Sudret, J. Wiart
Computer simulation has become the standard tool in many engineering fields for designing and optimizing systems, as well as for assessing their reliability. To cope with demanding analysis such as optimization and reliability, surrogate models (a.k.a meta-models) have been increasingly investigated in the last decade. Polynomial Chaos Expansions (PCE) and Kriging are two popular non-intrusive meta-modelling techniques. PCE surrogates the computational model with a series of orthonormal polynomials in the input variables where polynomials are chosen in coherency with the probability distributions of those input variables. On the other hand, Kriging assumes that the computer model behaves as a realization of a Gaussian random process whose parameters are estimated from the available computer runs, i.e. input vectors and response values. These two techniques have been developed more or less in parallel so far with little interaction between the researchers in the two fields. In this paper, PC-Kriging is derived as a new non-intrusive meta-modeling approach combining PCE and Kriging. A sparse set of orthonormal polynomials (PCE) approximates the global behavior of the computational model whereas Kriging manages the local variability of the model output. An adaptive algorithm similar to the least angle regression algorithm determines the optimal sparse set of polynomials. PC-Kriging is validated on various benchmark analytical functions which are easy to sample for reference results. From the numerical investigations it is concluded that PC-Kriging performs better than or at least as good as the two distinct meta-modeling techniques. A larger gain in accuracy is obtained when the experimental design has a limited size, which is an asset when dealing with demanding computational models.
{"title":"Polynomial-Chaos-based Kriging","authors":"R. Schöbi, B. Sudret, J. Wiart","doi":"10.1615/INT.J.UNCERTAINTYQUANTIFICATION.2015012467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1615/INT.J.UNCERTAINTYQUANTIFICATION.2015012467","url":null,"abstract":"Computer simulation has become the standard tool in many engineering fields for designing and optimizing systems, as well as for assessing their reliability. To cope with demanding analysis such as optimization and reliability, surrogate models (a.k.a meta-models) have been increasingly investigated in the last decade. Polynomial Chaos Expansions (PCE) and Kriging are two popular non-intrusive meta-modelling techniques. PCE surrogates the computational model with a series of orthonormal polynomials in the input variables where polynomials are chosen in coherency with the probability distributions of those input variables. On the other hand, Kriging assumes that the computer model behaves as a realization of a Gaussian random process whose parameters are estimated from the available computer runs, i.e. input vectors and response values. These two techniques have been developed more or less in parallel so far with little interaction between the researchers in the two fields. In this paper, PC-Kriging is derived as a new non-intrusive meta-modeling approach combining PCE and Kriging. A sparse set of orthonormal polynomials (PCE) approximates the global behavior of the computational model whereas Kriging manages the local variability of the model output. An adaptive algorithm similar to the least angle regression algorithm determines the optimal sparse set of polynomials. PC-Kriging is validated on various benchmark analytical functions which are easy to sample for reference results. From the numerical investigations it is concluded that PC-Kriging performs better than or at least as good as the two distinct meta-modeling techniques. A larger gain in accuracy is obtained when the experimental design has a limited size, which is an asset when dealing with demanding computational models.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82706325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gabriel Becker, C. Barr, R. Gentleman, Michael Lawrence
Science depends on collaboration, result reproduction, and the development of supporting software tools. Each of these requires careful management of software versions. We present a unified model for installing, managing, and publishing software contexts in R. It introduces the package manifest as a central data structure for representing version specific, decentralized package cohorts. The manifest points to package sources on arbitrary hosts and in various forms, including tarballs and directories under version control. We provide a high-level interface for creating and switching between side-by-side package libraries derived from manifests. Finally, we extend package installation to support the retrieval of exact package versions as indicated by manifests, and to maintain provenance for installed packages. The provenance information enables the user to publish libraries or sessions as manifests, hence completing the loop between publication and deployment. We have implemented this model across two software packages, switchr and GRANbase, and have released the source code under the Artistic 2.0 license.
{"title":"Enhancing reproducibility and collaboration via management of R package cohorts","authors":"Gabriel Becker, C. Barr, R. Gentleman, Michael Lawrence","doi":"10.18637/JSS.V082.I01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18637/JSS.V082.I01","url":null,"abstract":"Science depends on collaboration, result reproduction, and the development of supporting software tools. Each of these requires careful management of software versions. We present a unified model for installing, managing, and publishing software contexts in R. It introduces the package manifest as a central data structure for representing version specific, decentralized package cohorts. The manifest points to package sources on arbitrary hosts and in various forms, including tarballs and directories under version control. We provide a high-level interface for creating and switching between side-by-side package libraries derived from manifests. Finally, we extend package installation to support the retrieval of exact package versions as indicated by manifests, and to maintain provenance for installed packages. The provenance information enables the user to publish libraries or sessions as manifests, hence completing the loop between publication and deployment. We have implemented this model across two software packages, switchr and GRANbase, and have released the source code under the Artistic 2.0 license.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89498425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. Kantas, A. Doucet, Sumeetpal S. Singh, J. Maciejowski, N. Chopin
Nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models are ubiquitous in statistics, econometrics, information engineering and signal processing. Particle methods, also known as Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods, provide reliable numerical approximations to the associated state inference problems. However, in most applications, the state-space model of interest also depends on unknown static parameters that need to be estimated from the data. In this context, standard particle methods fail and it is necessary to rely on more sophisticated algorithms. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of particle methods that have been proposed to perform static parameter estimation in state-space models. We discuss the advantages and limitations of these methods and illustrate their performance on simple models.
{"title":"On Particle Methods for Parameter Estimation in State-Space Models","authors":"N. Kantas, A. Doucet, Sumeetpal S. Singh, J. Maciejowski, N. Chopin","doi":"10.1214/14-STS511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1214/14-STS511","url":null,"abstract":"Nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models are ubiquitous in statistics, econometrics, information engineering and signal processing. Particle methods, also known as Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods, provide reliable numerical approximations to the associated state inference problems. However, in most applications, the state-space model of interest also depends on unknown static parameters that need to be estimated from the data. In this context, standard particle methods fail and it is necessary to rely on more sophisticated algorithms. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of particle methods that have been proposed to perform static parameter estimation in state-space models. We discuss the advantages and limitations of these methods and illustrate their performance on simple models.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81901258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The R package MfUSampler provides Monte Carlo Markov Chain machinery for generating samples from multivariate probability distributions using univariate sampling algorithms such as Slice Sampler and Adaptive Rejection Sampler. The sampler function performs a full cycle of univariate sampling steps, one coordinate at a time. In each step, the latest sample values obtained for other coordinates are used to form the conditional distributions. The concept is an extension of Gibbs sampling where each step involves, not an independent sample from the conditional distribution, but a Markov transition for which the conditional distribution is invariant. The software relies on proportionality of conditional distributions to the joint distribution to implement a thin wrapper for producing conditionals. Examples illustrate basic usage as well as methods for improving performance. By encapsulating the multivariate-from-univariate logic, MfUSampler provides a reliable library for rapid prototyping of custom Bayesian models while allowing for incremental performance optimizations such as utilization of conjugacy, conditional independence, and porting function evaluations to compiled languages.
{"title":"Multivariate-from-Univariate MCMC Sampler: R Package MfUSampler","authors":"A. S. Mahani, M. Sharabiani","doi":"10.18637/JSS.V078.C01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18637/JSS.V078.C01","url":null,"abstract":"The R package MfUSampler provides Monte Carlo Markov Chain machinery for generating samples from multivariate probability distributions using univariate sampling algorithms such as Slice Sampler and Adaptive Rejection Sampler. The sampler function performs a full cycle of univariate sampling steps, one coordinate at a time. In each step, the latest sample values obtained for other coordinates are used to form the conditional distributions. The concept is an extension of Gibbs sampling where each step involves, not an independent sample from the conditional distribution, but a Markov transition for which the conditional distribution is invariant. The software relies on proportionality of conditional distributions to the joint distribution to implement a thin wrapper for producing conditionals. Examples illustrate basic usage as well as methods for improving performance. By encapsulating the multivariate-from-univariate logic, MfUSampler provides a reliable library for rapid prototyping of custom Bayesian models while allowing for incremental performance optimizations such as utilization of conjugacy, conditional independence, and porting function evaluations to compiled languages.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74659398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Particle filter (PF) sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are very attractive for the estimation of parameters of time dependent systems where the data is either not all available at once, or the range of time constants is wide enough to create problems in the numerical time propagation of the states. The need to evolve a large number of particles makes PF-based methods computationally challenging, the main bottlenecks being the time propagation of each particle and the large number of particles. While parallelization is typically advocated to speed up the computing time, vectorization of the algorithm on a single processor may result in even larger speedups for certain problems. In this paper we present a formulation of the PF-SMC class of algorithms proposed in Arnold et al. (2013), which is particularly amenable to a parallel or vectorized computing environment, and we illustrate the performance with a few computed examples in MATLAB.
{"title":"Vectorized and Parallel Particle Filter SMC Parameter Estimation for Stiff ODEs","authors":"Andrea Arnold, D. Calvetti, E. Somersalo","doi":"10.3934/proc.2015.0075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3934/proc.2015.0075","url":null,"abstract":"Particle filter (PF) sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are very attractive for the estimation of parameters of time dependent systems where the data is either not all available at once, or the range of time constants is wide enough to create problems in the numerical time propagation of the states. The need to evolve a large number of particles makes PF-based methods computationally challenging, the main bottlenecks being the time propagation of each particle and the large number of particles. While parallelization is typically advocated to speed up the computing time, vectorization of the algorithm on a single processor may result in even larger speedups for certain problems. In this paper we present a formulation of the PF-SMC class of algorithms proposed in Arnold et al. (2013), which is particularly amenable to a parallel or vectorized computing environment, and we illustrate the performance with a few computed examples in MATLAB.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78086579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-11-06DOI: 10.1615/Int.J.UncertaintyQuantification.2015013781
M. Park, M. Tretyakov
We propose a new method for sampling from stationary Gaussian random field on a grid which is not regular but has a regular block structure which is often the case in applications. The introduced block circulant embedding method (BCEM) can outperform the classical circulant embedding method (CEM) which requires a regularization of the irregular grid before its application. Comparison of BCEM vs CEM is performed on some typical model problems.
{"title":"A Block Circulant Embedding Method for Simulation of Stationary Gaussian Random Fields on Block-regular Grids","authors":"M. Park, M. Tretyakov","doi":"10.1615/Int.J.UncertaintyQuantification.2015013781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1615/Int.J.UncertaintyQuantification.2015013781","url":null,"abstract":"We propose a new method for sampling from stationary Gaussian random field on a grid which is not regular but has a regular block structure which is often the case in applications. The introduced block circulant embedding method (BCEM) can outperform the classical circulant embedding method (CEM) which requires a regularization of the irregular grid before its application. Comparison of BCEM vs CEM is performed on some typical model problems.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78568815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The growth in the use of computationally intensive statistical procedures, especially with Big Data, has necessitated the usage of parallel computation on diverse platforms such as multicore, GPU, clusters and clouds. However, slowdown due to interprocess communication costs typically limits such methods to "embarrassingly parallel" (EP) algorithms, especially on non-shared memory platforms. This paper develops a broadly-applicable method for converting many non-EP algorithms into statistically equivalent EP ones. The method is shown to yield excellent levels of speedup for a variety of statistical computations. It also overcomes certain problems of memory limitations.
{"title":"Software Alchemy: Turning Complex Statistical Computations into Embarrassingly-Parallel Ones","authors":"N. Matloff","doi":"10.18637/JSS.V071.I04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18637/JSS.V071.I04","url":null,"abstract":"The growth in the use of computationally intensive statistical procedures, especially with Big Data, has necessitated the usage of parallel computation on diverse platforms such as multicore, GPU, clusters and clouds. However, slowdown due to interprocess communication costs typically limits such methods to \"embarrassingly parallel\" (EP) algorithms, especially on non-shared memory platforms. This paper develops a broadly-applicable method for converting many non-EP algorithms into statistically equivalent EP ones. The method is shown to yield excellent levels of speedup for a variety of statistical computations. It also overcomes certain problems of memory limitations.","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75005020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Generalized additive models for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS) are a flexible class of regression models that allow to model multiple parameters of a distribution function, such as the mean and the standard deviation, simultaneously. With the R package gamboostLSS, we provide a boosting method to fit these models. Variable selection and model choice are naturally available within this regularized regression framework. To introduce and illustrate the R package gamboostLSS and its infrastructure, we use a data set on stunted growth in India. In addition to the specification and application of the model itself, we present a variety of convenience functions, including methods for tuning parameter selection, prediction and visualization of results. The package gamboostLSS is available from CRAN (this http URL).
{"title":"gamboostLSS: An R Package for Model Building and Variable Selection in the GAMLSS Framework","authors":"B. Hofner, A. Mayr, M. Schmid","doi":"10.18637/JSS.V074.I01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18637/JSS.V074.I01","url":null,"abstract":"Generalized additive models for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS) are a flexible class of regression models that allow to model multiple parameters of a distribution function, such as the mean and the standard deviation, simultaneously. With the R package gamboostLSS, we provide a boosting method to fit these models. Variable selection and model choice are naturally available within this regularized regression framework. To introduce and illustrate the R package gamboostLSS and its infrastructure, we use a data set on stunted growth in India. In addition to the specification and application of the model itself, we present a variety of convenience functions, including methods for tuning parameter selection, prediction and visualization of results. The package gamboostLSS is available from CRAN (this http URL).","PeriodicalId":8446,"journal":{"name":"arXiv: Computation","volume":"35 7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78031699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}