Automated factor slice sampling

Matthew M. Tibbits, Chris Groendyke, Murali Haran, John C. Liechty

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms offer a very general approach for sampling from arbitrary distributions. However, designing and tuning MCMC algorithms for each new distribution can be challenging and time consuming. It is particularly difficult to create an efficient sampler when there is strong dependence among the variables in a multivariate distribution. We describe a two-pronged approach for constructing efficient, automated MCMC algorithms: (1) we propose the "factor slice sampler," a generalization of the univariate slice sampler where we treat the selection of a coordinate basis (factors) as an additional tuning parameter, and (2) we develop an approach for automatically selecting tuning parameters to construct an efficient factor slice sampler. In addition to automating the factor slice sampler, our tuning approach also applies to the standard univariate slice samplers.We demonstrate the efficiency and general applicability of our automated MCMC algorithm with a number of illustrative examples. This article has online supplementary materials.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)543-563
Number of pages21
JournalJournal of Computational and Graphical Statistics
Volume23
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics
  • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Automated factor slice sampling'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this