We present a multivariate central limit theorem for a general class of interacting Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms used to solve nonlinear measure-valued equations. These algorithms generate stochastic processes which belong to the class of nonlinear Markov chains interacting with their empirical occupation measures. We develop an original theoretical analysis based on resolvent operators a...

Sequential Monte Carlo Samplers are a class of stochastic algorithms for Monte Carlo integral estimation w.r.t. probability distributions, which combine elements of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and importance sampling/resampling schemes. We develop a stability analysis by funtional inequalities for a nonlinear flow of probability measures describing the limit behavior of the methods as the ...

Given a collection of fossil sites with data about the taxa that occur in each site, the task in biochronology is to find good estimates for the ages or ordering of sites. We describe a full probabilistic model for fossil data. The parameters of the model are natural: the ordering of the sites, the origination and extinction times for each taxon, and the probabilities of different types of erro...

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it briefly introduces basic Bayesian techniques with emphasis on present applications in sensor networks. Second, it reviews modern Bayesian simulation methods, thereby providing an introduction to the main building blocks of the advanced Markov chain Monte Carlo and Sequential Monte Carlo methods. Lastly, it discusses new interesting research hori...

Monte Carlo (MC) sampling methods are widely applied in Bayesian inference, system simulation and optimization problems. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are a well-known class of MC methods which generate a Markov chain with the desired invariant distribution. In this document, we focus on the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) sampler, which can be considered as the atom of the MCMC techn...

In general, the transition probability P of the Markov chain depends on some tuning parameter θ defined on some space Θ which can be either finite dimensional or infinite dimensional. The success of the MCMC procedure depends crucially upon a proper choice of θ. To illustrate, consider the standard Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm. For simplicity, we assume that π has a density also denoted b...

Probabilistic inference is an attractive approach to uncertain reasoning and em pirical learning in arti cial intelligence Computational di culties arise however because probabilistic models with the necessary realism and exibility lead to com plex distributions over high dimensional spaces Related problems in other elds have been tackled using Monte Carlo methods based on sampling using Markov...