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Variational Inference for Bayesian MIDAS Regression

Simeone, Luigi

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We develop a Coordinate Ascent Variational Inference (CAVI) algorithm for Bayesian Mixed Data Sampling (MIDAS) regression with linear weight parameterizations. The model separates impact coeffcients from weighting function parameters through a normalization constraint, creating a bilinear structure that renders generic Hamiltonian Monte Carlo samplers unreliable while preserving conditional conjugacy exploitable by CAVI. Each variational update admits a closed-form solution: Gaussian for regression coefficients and weight parameters, Inverse-Gamma for the error variance. The algorithm propagates uncertainty across blocks through second moments, distinguishing it from naive plug-in approximations. In a Monte Carlo study spanning 21 data-generating configurations with up to 50 predictors, CAVI produces posterior means nearly identical to a block Gibbs sampler benchmark while achieving speedups of 107x to 1,772x (Table 9). Generic automatic differentiation VI (ADVI), by contrast, produces bias 714 times larger while being orders of magnitude slower, confirming the value of model-specific derivations. Weight function parameters maintain excellent calibration (coverage above 92%) across all configurations. Impact coefficient credible intervals exhibit the underdispersion characteristic of mean-field approximations, with coverage declining from 89% to 55% as the number of predictors grows a documented trade-off between speed and interval calibration that structured variational methods can address. An empirical application to realized volatility forecasting on S&P 500 daily returns cofirms that CAVI and Gibbs sampling yield virtually identical point forecasts, with CAVI completing each monthly estimation in under 10 milliseconds.


ed519dacc89b2bead3f453b0b05a4a8b-Supplemental.pdf

Neural Information Processing Systems

Figure 11: Comparison of HCAM (labeled as HTM) with different chunk sizes to TrXL across the different ballet levels. The performance of the HCAM model is robust to varying chunk size, indicating that HCAM does not need a task-relevant segmentation to perform well.


Quantifying and Attributing Submodel Uncertainty in Stochastic Simulation Models and Digital Twins

Ghasemloo, Mohammadmahdi, Eckman, David J., Li, Yaxian

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Stochastic simulation is widely used to study complex systems composed of various interconnected subprocesses, such as input processes, routing and control logic, optimization routines, and data-driven decision modules. In practice, these subprocesses may be inherently unknown or too computationally intensive to directly embed in the simulation model. Replacing these elements with estimated or learned approximations introduces a form of epistemic uncertainty that we refer to as submodel uncertainty. This paper investigates how submodel uncertainty affects the estimation of system performance metrics. We develop a framework for quantifying submodel uncertainty in stochastic simulation models and extend the framework to digital-twin settings, where simulation experiments are repeatedly conducted with the model initialized from observed system states. Building on approaches from input uncertainty analysis, we leverage bootstrapping and Bayesian model averaging to construct quantile-based confidence or credible intervals for key performance indicators. We propose a tree-based method that decomposes total output variability and attributes uncertainty to individual submodels in the form of importance scores. The proposed framework is model-agnostic and accommodates both parametric and nonparametric submodels under frequentist and Bayesian modeling paradigms. A synthetic numerical experiment and a more realistic digital-twin simulation of a contact center illustrate the importance of understanding how and how much individual submodels contribute to overall uncertainty.




Appendix to Weakly Coupled Deep Q-Networks A Proofs

Neural Information Processing Systems

We prove part the first part of the proposition (weak duality) by induction. It is well-known that, by the value iteration algorithm's convergence, Q Consider a state s S and a feasible action a A (s). We use an induction proof. B (w), which follows by the convergence of value iteration.A.2 Proof of Theorem 1 Proof. Now we state the following lemma.



c50c42f853db0f1f5b4195358b6d97de-Supplemental-Conference.pdf

Neural Information Processing Systems

Let us imagine that the grand coalition is formed by one party joining the coalition at a time. Given an order of parties (i.e., a permutationπ of N), party i joins the coalitionPiπ which denotes all parties precedingi in π. It is well-known that the Shapley value, despite its fairness, is not replication robustness in data valuation [1]. This is because the two desirable properties for fairness: symmetry and efficiency violate the replication robustness. In this work, we are interested in maintaining both the efficiency and the symmetry properties of an allocation scheme. Let us consider the case that in the grand coalitionN+, there exists a partyi+ N that is a replication of another party i N \i+ (i.e., Di = Di+).



BFTS: Thompson Sampling with Bayesian Additive Regression Trees

Deng, Ruizhe, Chakraborty, Bibhas, Chen, Ran, Tan, Yan Shuo

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Contextual bandits are a core technology for personalized mobile health interventions, where decision-making requires adapting to complex, non-linear user behaviors. While Thompson Sampling (TS) is a preferred strategy for these problems, its performance hinges on the quality of the underlying reward model. Standard linear models suffer from high bias, while neural network approaches are often brittle and difficult to tune in online settings. Conversely, tree ensembles dominate tabular data prediction but typically rely on heuristic uncertainty quantification, lacking a principled probabilistic basis for TS. We propose Bayesian Forest Thompson Sampling (BFTS), the first contextual bandit algorithm to integrate Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART), a fully probabilistic sum-of-trees model, directly into the exploration loop. We prove that BFTS is theoretically sound, deriving an information-theoretic Bayesian regret bound of $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$. As a complementary result, we establish frequentist minimax optimality for a "feel-good" variant, confirming the structural suitability of BART priors for non-parametric bandits. Empirically, BFTS achieves state-of-the-art regret on tabular benchmarks with near-nominal uncertainty calibration. Furthermore, in an offline policy evaluation on the Drink Less micro-randomized trial, BFTS improves engagement rates by over 30% compared to the deployed policy, demonstrating its practical effectiveness for behavioral interventions.