In this paper, a Convolution-Based Converter (CBC) is proposed to develop a methodology for removing the strong or fixed priors in estimating the probability distribution of targets based on observations in the stochastic process. Traditional approaches, e.g., Markov-based and Gaussian process-based methods, typically leverage observations to estimate targets based on strong or fixed priors (such as Markov properties or Gaussian prior). However, the effectiveness of these methods depends on how well their prior assumptions align with the characteristics of the problem. When the assumed priors are not satisfied, these approaches may perform poorly or even become unusable. To overcome the above limitation, we introduce the Convolution-Based converter (CBC), which implicitly estimates the conditional probability distribution of targets without strong or fixed priors, and directly outputs the expected trajectory of the stochastic process that satisfies the constraints from observations. This approach reduces the dependence on priors, enhancing flexibility and adaptability in modeling stochastic processes when addressing different problems. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms existing baselines across multiple metrics.

Game-theoretic models are effective tools for modeling multi-agent interactions, especially when robots need to coordinate with humans. However, applying these models requires inferring their specifications from observed behaviors -- a challenging task known as the inverse game problem. Existing inverse game approaches often struggle to account for behavioral uncertainty and measurement noise, and leverage both offline and online data. To address these limitations, we propose an inverse game method that integrates a generative trajectory model into a differentiable mixed-strategy game framework. By representing the mixed strategy with a conditional variational autoencoder (CVAE), our method can infer high-dimensional, multi-modal behavior distributions from noisy measurements while adapting in real-time to new observations. We extensively evaluate our method in a simulated navigation benchmark, where the observations are generated by an unknown game model. Despite the model mismatch, our method can infer Nash-optimal actions comparable to those of the ground-truth model and the oracle inverse game baseline, even in the presence of uncertain agent objectives and noisy measurements.

We introduce a Bayesian framework for measuring spatio-temporal couplings (STCs) in ultra-intense lasers that reconceptualizes what constitutes a 'single-shot' measurement. Moving beyond traditional distinctions between single- and multi-shot devices, our approach provides rigorous criteria for determining when measurements can truly resolve individual laser shots rather than statistical averages. This framework shows that single-shot capability is not an intrinsic device property but emerges from the relationship between measurement precision and inherent parameter variability. Implementing this approach with a new measurement device at the ATLAS-3000 petawatt laser, we provide the first quantitative uncertainty bounds on pulse front tilt and curvature. Notably, we observe that our Bayesian method reduces uncertainty by up to 60% compared to traditional approaches. Through this analysis, we reveal how the interplay between measurement precision and intrinsic system variability defines achievable resolution -- insights that have direct implications for applications where precise control of laser-matter interaction is critical.

In this paper, we investigate the label shift quantification problem. We propose robust estimators of the label distribution which turn out to coincide with the Maximum Likelihood Estimator. We analyze the theoretical aspects and derive deviation bounds for the proposed method, providing optimal guarantees in the well-specified case, along with notable robustness properties against outliers and contamination. Our results provide theoretical validation for empirical observations on the robustness of Maximum Likelihood Label Shift.

Denoising diffusion models have driven significant progress in the field of Bayesian inverse problems. Recent approaches use pre-trained diffusion models as priors to solve a wide range of such problems, only leveraging inference-time compute and thereby eliminating the need to retrain task-specific models on the same dataset. To approximate the posterior of a Bayesian inverse problem, a diffusion model samples from a sequence of intermediate posterior distributions, each with an intractable likelihood function. This work proposes a novel mixture approximation of these intermediate distributions. Since direct gradient-based sampling of these mixtures is infeasible due to intractable terms, we propose a practical method based on Gibbs sampling. We validate our approach through extensive experiments on image inverse problems, utilizing both pixel- and latent-space diffusion priors, as well as on source separation with an audio diffusion model. The code is available at https://www.github.com/badr-moufad/mgdm

This paper introduces Type 2 Tobit Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (TOBART-2). BART can produce accurate individual-specific treatment effect estimates. However, in practice estimates are often biased by sample selection. We extend the Type 2 Tobit sample selection model to account for nonlinearities and model uncertainty by including sums of trees in both the selection and outcome equations. A Dirichlet Process Mixture distribution for the error terms allows for departure from the assumption of bivariate normally distributed errors. Soft trees and a Dirichlet prior on splitting probabilities improve modeling of smooth and sparse data generating processes. We include a simulation study and an application to the RAND Health Insurance Experiment data set.

We propose a novel Bregman descent algorithm for minimizing a convex function that is expressed as the sum of a differentiable part (defined over an open set) and a possibly nonsmooth term. The approach, referred to as the Variable Bregman Majorization-Minimization (VBMM) algorithm, extends the Bregman Proximal Gradient method by allowing the Bregman function used in the divergence to adaptively vary at each iteration, provided it satisfies a majorizing condition on the objective function. This adaptive framework enables the algorithm to approximate the objective more precisely at each iteration, thereby allowing for accelerated convergence compared to the traditional Bregman Proximal Gradient descent. We establish the convergence of the VBMM algorithm to a minimizer under mild assumptions on the family of metrics used. Furthermore, we introduce a novel application of both the Bregman Proximal Gradient method and the VBMM algorithm to the estimation of the multidimensional parameters of a Dirichlet distribution through the maximization of its log-likelihood. Numerical experiments confirm that the VBMM algorithm outperforms existing approaches in terms of convergence speed.

I think the distributed setting and all the subtleties that come with it should have been explored better. I was left wondering about the communication costs of an architecture needed for this to work, and potential issues with that. One obvious question would be, how would the iterate updates at each node be impacted by random noise injected into the w_{js} being passed around in the comms channels and/or random drops / missed updates. The only difference between the convergence discussion in \S4.1 and other works in the literature that use similar machinery seems to be the formulations for the extra constants/iterate weights in the distributed setting. This reduces the novelty/significance of that section somewhat, in my opinion.

The paper adresses the important problem of Bayesian inference in a distributed setting, via a decentralized Langevin algorithm. Although the method is a natural extension of existing algorithms, its simplicity is an advantage, and the theoretical analysis is nontrivial. After considering the author's response, all reviewers agreed that the paper will make a nice contribution to Neurips.

The authors propose Bayesian Meta Architecture Search (BASE), a method for meta learning neural network architectures and their weights across tasks. The paper frames this problem as an Bayesian inference problem and employs Gumbel-Softmax, reparametrization and optimization embedding, a variation inference method, to optimize a distribution over neural network architectures and their weights across different tasks. Originality: Meta learning neural network architectures is a very natural next step for NAS research, which as not been done so far (at least I'm not aware of any work). It is not only very natural but also very important as it allows to make NAS more scalable and of more practical relevance. The Bayesian view, however, is not really novel, but rather an obvious extension of [1]. In general, the related work section is very short and does not provide a proper summary of the current state of the art in this field of research Quality: BASE is well motivated and derived.