A Gentle Introduction to Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)

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Posted by dustinstansbury

Applying probabilistic models to data usually involves integrating a complex, multi-dimensional probability distribution. For example, calculating the expectation/mean of a model distribution involves such an integration. Many (most) times, these integrals are not calculable due to the high dimensionality of the distribution or because there is no closed-form expression for the integral available using calculus. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a method that allows one to approximate complex integrals using stochastic sampling routines. As MCMC’s name indicates, the method is composed of two components, the Markov chain and Monte Carlo integration.

Monte Carlo integration is a powerful technique that exploits stochastic sampling of the distribution in question in order to approximate the difficult integration. However, in order to use Monte Carlo integration it is necessary to be able to sample from the probability distribution in question, which may be difficult or impossible to do directly. This is where the second component of MCMC, the Markov chain, comes in. A Markov chain is a sequential model that transitions from one state to another in a probabilistic fashion, where the next state that the chain takes is conditioned on the previous state. Markov chains are useful in that if they are constructed properly, and allowed to run for a long time, the states that a chain will take also sample from a target probability distribution. Therefore we can construct Markov chains to sample from the distribution whose integral we would like to approximate, then use Monte Carlo integration to perform the approximation.

Here I introduce a series of posts where I describe the basic concepts underlying MCMC, starting off by describing Monte Carlo Integration, then giving a brief introduction of Markov chains and how they can be constructed to sample from a target probability distribution. Given these foundation principles, we can then discuss MCMC techniques such as the Metropolis and Metropolis-Hastings algorithms, the Gibbs sampler, and the Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm.

As always, each post has a somewhat formal/mathematical introduction, along with an example and simple Matlab implementations of the associated algorithms.

Posted in Algorithms, MCMC, Sampling Methods, Statistics

2 Comments

Tags: Gibbs Sampler, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, Hybrid Monte Carlo, integral approximation, integration, Markov Chain, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, MCMC, Metropolis sampler, Metropolis-Hastings Sampler, Monte Carlo Integration

MCMC: The Gibbs Sampler

NOV 5

Posted by dustinstansbury

In the previous post, we compared using block-wise and component-wise implementations of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm for sampling from a multivariate probability distribution $p(\bold x)$ . Component-wise updates for MCMC algorithms are generally more efficient for multivariate problems than blockwise updates in that we are more likely to accept a proposed sample by drawing each component/dimension independently of the others. However, samples may still be rejected, leading to excess computation that is never used. The Gibbs sampler, another popular MCMC sampling technique, provides a means of avoiding such wasted computation. Like the component-wise implementation of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, the Gibbs sampler also uses component-wise updates. However, unlike in the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, all proposed samples are accepted, so there is no wasted computation.

The Gibbs sampler is applicable for certain classes of problems, based on two main criterion. Given a target distribution $p(\bold x)$ , where $\bold x = (x_1, x_2, \dots, x_D$ , ), The first criterion is 1) that it is necessary that we have an analytic (mathematical) expression for the conditional distribution of each variable in the joint distribution given all other variables in the joint. Formally, if the target distribution $p(\bold x)$ is $D$ -dimensional, we must have $D$ individual expressions for

$p(x_i|x_1,x_2,\dots,x_{i-1},x_{i+1},\dots,x_D)$

$= p(x_i | x_j), j\neq i$ .

Each of these expressions defines the probability of the $i$ -th dimension given that we have values for all other ( $j \neq i$ ) dimensions. Having the conditional distribution for each variable means that we don’t need a proposal distribution or an accept/reject criterion, like in the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Therefore, we can simply sample from each conditional while keeping all other variables held fixed. This leads to the second criterion 2) that we must be able to sample from each conditional distribution. This caveat is obvious if we want an implementable algorithm.

The Gibbs sampler works in much the same way as the component-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithms except that instead drawing from a proposal distribution for each dimension, then accepting or rejecting the proposed sample, we simply draw a value for that dimension according to the variable’s corresponding conditional distribution. We also accept all values that are drawn. Similar to the component-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, we step through each variable sequentially, sampling it while keeping all other variables fixed. The Gibbs sampling procedure is outlined below

set $t = 0$
generate an initial state $\bold x^{(0)} \sim \pi^{(0)}$
repeat until $t = M$

set $t = t+1$

for each dimension $i = 1..D$

draw $x_i$ from $p(x_i|x_1,x_2,\dots,x_{i-1},x_{i+1},\dots,x_D)$

To get a better understanding of the Gibbs sampler at work, let’s implement the Gibbs sampler to solve the same multivariate sampling problem addressed in the previous post.

Example: Sampling from a bivariate a Normal distribution

This example parallels the examples in the previous post where we sampled from a 2-D Normal distribution using block-wise and component-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithms. Here, we show how to implement a Gibbs sampler to draw samples from the same target distribution. As a reminder, the target distribution $p(\bold x)$ is a Normal form with following parameterization:

$p(\bold x) = \mathcal N (\bold{\mu}, \bold \Sigma)$

with mean

$\mu = [\mu_1,\mu_2]= [0, 0]$

and covariance

$\bold \Sigma = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & \rho_{12} \\ \rho_{21} & 1\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0.8 \\ 0.8 & 1\end{bmatrix}$

In order to sample from this distribution using a Gibbs sampler, we need to have in hand the conditional distributions for variables/dimensions $x_1$ and $x_2$ :

$p(x_1 | x_2^{(t-1)})$ (i.e. the conditional for the first dimension, $x_1$ )

and

$p(x_2 | x_1^{(t)})$ (the conditional for the second dimension, $x_2$ )

Where $x_2^{(t-1)}$ is the previous state of the second dimension, and $x_1^{(t)}$ is the state of the first dimension after drawing from $p(x_1 | x_2^{(t-1)})$ . The reason for the discrepancy between updating $x_1$ and $x_2$ using states $(t-1)$ and $(t)$ , can be is seen in step 3 of the algorithm outlined in the previous section. At iteration $t$ we first sample a new state for variable $x_1$ conditioned on the most recent state of variable $x_2$ , which is from iteration $(t-1)$ . We then sample a new state for the variable $x_2$ conditioned on the most recent state of variable $x_1$ , which is now from the current iteration, $t$ .

After some math (which which I will skip for some brevity, but see the following for some details), we find that the two conditional distributions for the target Normal distribution are:

$p(x_1 | x_2^{(t-1)}) = \mathcal N(\mu_1 + \rho_{21}(x_2^{(t-1)} - \mu_2),\sqrt{1-\rho_{21}^2})$

and

$p(x_2 | x_1^{(t)})=\mathcal N(\mu_2 + \rho_{12}(x_1^{(t)}-\mu_1),\sqrt{1-\rho_{12}^2})$ ,

which are both univariate Normal distributions, each with a mean that is dependent on the value of the most recent state of the conditioning variable, and a variance that is dependent on the target covariances between the two variables.

Using the above expressions for the conditional probabilities of variables $x_1$ and $x_2$ , we implement the Gibbs sampler using MATLAB below. The output of the sampler is shown here:

Gibbs sampler Markov chain and samples for bivariate Normal target distribution

Inspecting the figure above, note how at each iteration the Markov chain for the Gibbs sampler first takes a step only along the $x_1$ direction, then only along the $x_2$ direction. This shows how the Gibbs sampler sequentially samples the value of each variable separately, in a component-wise fashion.

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% EXAMPLE: GIBBS SAMPLER FOR BIVARIATE NORMAL
rand('seed',12345);
nSamples = 5000;
 
mu = [0 0];% TARGET MEAN
rho(1) = 0.8;% rho_21
rho(2) = 0.8;% rho_12
 
% INITIALIZE THE GIBBS SAMPLER
propSigma = 1;% PROPOSAL VARIANCE
minn = [-3 -3];
maxx = [3 3];
 
% INITIALIZE SAMPLES
x = zeros(nSamples,2);
x(1,1) = unifrnd(minn(1), maxx(1));
x(1,2) = unifrnd(minn(2), maxx(2));
 
dims = 1:2;% INDEX INTO EACH DIMENSION
 
% RUN GIBBS SAMPLER
t = 1;
whilet < nSamples
    t = t + 1;
    T = [t-1,t];
    foriD = 1:2 % LOOP OVER DIMENSIONS
        % UPDATE SAMPLES
        nIx = dims~=iD;% *NOT* THE CURRENT DIMENSION
        % CONDITIONAL MEAN
        muCond = mu(iD) + rho(iD)*(x(T(iD),nIx)-mu(nIx));
        % CONDITIONAL VARIANCE
        varCond = sqrt(1-rho(iD)^2);
        % DRAW FROM CONDITIONAL
        x(t,iD) = normrnd(muCond,varCond);
    end
end
 
% DISPLAY SAMPLING DYNAMICS
figure;
h1 = scatter(x(:,1),x(:,2),'r.');
 
% CONDITIONAL STEPS/SAMPLES
hold on;
fort = 1:50
    plot([x(t,1),x(t+1,1)],[x(t,2),x(t,2)],'k-');
    plot([x(t+1,1),x(t+1,1)],[x(t,2),x(t+1,2)],'k-');
    h2 = plot(x(t+1,1),x(t+1,2),'ko');
end
 
h3 = scatter(x(1,1),x(1,2),'go','Linewidth',3);
legend([h1,h2,h3],{'Samples','1st 50 Samples','x(t=0)'},'Location','Northwest')
hold off;
xlabel('x_1');
ylabel('x_2');
axis square

Wrapping Up

The Gibbs sampler is a popular MCMC method for sampling from complex, multivariate probability distributions. However, the Gibbs sampler cannot be used for general sampling problems. For many target distributions, it may difficult or impossible to obtain a closed-form expression for all the needed conditional distributions. In other scenarios, analytic expressions may exist for all conditionals but it may be difficult to sample from any or all of the conditional distributions (in these scenarios it is common to use univariate sampling methods such as rejection sampling and (surprise!) Metropolis-type MCMC techniques to approximate samples from each conditional). Gibbs samplers are very popular for Bayesian methods where models are often devised in such a way that conditional expressions for all model variables are easily obtained and take well-known forms that can be sampled from efficiently.

Gibbs sampling, like many MCMC techniques suffer from what is often called “slow mixing.” Slow mixing occurs when the underlying Markov chain takes a long time to sufficiently explore the values of $\bold x$ in order to give a good characterization of $p(\bold x)$ . Slow mixing is due to a number of factors including the “random walk” nature of the Markov chain, as well as the tendency of the Markov chain to get “stuck,” only sampling a single region of $\bold x$ having high-probability under $p(\bold x)$ . Such behaviors are bad for sampling distributions with multiple modes or heavy tails. More advanced techniques, such as Hybrid Monte Carlo have been developed to incorporate additional dynamics that increase the efficiency of the Markov chain path. We will discuss Hybrid Monte Carlo in a future post.

Posted in Algorithms, Density Estimation, Sampling, Sampling Methods, Statistics

2 Comments

Tags: Conditional Distribution, Gibbs Sampler, MCMC, Multivariate Normal

MCMC: Multivariate Distributions, Block-wise, & Component-wise Updates

NOV 4

Posted by dustinstansbury

In the previous posts on MCMC methods, we focused on how to sample from univariate target distributions. This was done mainly to give the reader some intuition about MCMC implementations with fairly tangible examples that can be visualized. However, MCMC can easily be extended to sample multivariate distributions.

In this post we will discuss two flavors of MCMC update procedure for sampling distributions in multiple dimensions: block-wise, and component-wise update procedures. We will show how these two different procedures can give rise to different implementations of the Metropolis-Hastings sampler to solve the same problem.

Block-wise Sampling

The first approach for performing multidimensional sampling is to use block-wise updates. In this approach the proposal distribution $q(\bold{x})$ has the same dimensionality as the target distribution $p(\bold x)$ . Specifically, if $p(\bold x)$ is a distribution over $D$ variables, ie. $\bold{x} = (x_1, x_2, \dots, x_D)$ , then we must design a proposal distribution that is also a distribution involving $D$ variables. We then accept or reject a proposed state $\bold x^*$ sampled from the proposal distribution $q(\bold x)$ in exactly the same way as for the univariate Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. To generate $M$ multivariate samples we perform the following block-wise sampling procedure:

set $t = 0$
generate an initial state $\bold x^{(0)} \sim \pi^{(0)}$
repeat until $t = M$

set $t = t+1$

generate a proposal state $\bold x^*$ from $q(\bold x | \bold x^{(t-1)})$

calculate the proposal correction factor $c = \frac{q(\bold x^{(t-1)} | \bold x^*) }{q(\bold x^*|\bold x^{(t-1)})}$

calculate the acceptance probability $\alpha = \text{min} \left (1,\frac{p(\bold x^*)}{p(\bold x^{(t-1)})} \times c\right )$

draw a random number $u$ from $\text{Unif}(0,1)$

if $u \leq \alpha$ accept the proposal state $\bold x^*$ and set $\bold x^{(t)}=\bold x^*$

else set $\bold x^{(t)} = \bold x^{(t-1)}$

Let’s take a look at the block-wise sampling routine in action.

Example 1: Block-wise Metropolis-Hastings for sampling of bivariate Normal distribution

In this example we use block-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to sample from a bivariate (i.e. $D = 2$ ) Normal distribution:

$p(\bold x) = \mathcal N (\bold{\mu}, \bold \Sigma)$

with mean

$\mu = [0, 0]$

and covariance

$\bold \Sigma = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0.8 \\ 0.8 & 1\end{bmatrix}$

Usually the target distribution $p(\bold x)$ will have a complex mathematical form, but for this example we’ll circumvent that by using MATLAB’s built-in function $\text{mvnpdf}$ to evaluate $p(\bold x)$ . For our proposal distribution, $q(\bold x)$ , let’s use a circular Normal centered at the the previous state/sample of the Markov chain/sampler, i.e:

$q(\bold x | \bold x^{(t-1)}) \sim \mathcal N (\bold x^{(t-1)}, \bold I)$ ,

where $\bold I$ is a 2-D identity matrix, giving the proposal distribution unit variance along both dimensions $x_1$ and $x_2$ , and zero covariance. You can find an MATLAB implementation of the block-wise sampler at the end of the section. The display of the samples and the target distribution output by the sampler implementation are shown below:

Samples drawn from block-wise Metropolis-Hastings sampler

We can see from the output that the block-wise sampler does a good job of drawing samples from the target distribution.

Note that our proposal distribution in this example is symmetric, therefore it was not necessary to calculate the correction factor $c$ per se. This means that this Metropolis-Hastings implementation is identical to the simpler Metropolis sampler.

Component-wise Sampling

A problem with block-wise updates, particularly when the number of dimensions $D$ becomes large, is that finding a suitable proposal distribution is difficult. This leads to a large proportion of the samples being rejected. One way to remedy this is to simply loop over the the $D$ dimensions of $\bold x$ in sequence, sampling each dimension independently from the others. This is what is known as using component-wise updates. Note that now the proposal distribution $q(x)$ is univariate, working only in one dimension, namely the current dimension that we are trying to sample. The component-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is outlined below.

set $t = 0$
generate an initial state $\bold x^{(0)} \sim \pi^{(0)}$
repeat until $t = M$

set $t = t+1$

for each dimension $i = 1..D$

generate a proposal state $x_i^*$ from $q(x_i | x_i^{(t-1)})$

calculate the proposal correction factor $c = \frac{q(x_i^{(t-1)}) | x_i^*)}{q(x_i^* | x_i^{(t-1)})}$

calculate the acceptance probability $\alpha = \text{min} \left (1,\frac{p( x_i^*, \bold x_j^{(t-1)})}{p( x_i^{(t-1)}, \bold x_j^{(t-1)})} \times c\right )$

draw a random number $u$ from $\text{Unif}(0,1)$

if $u \leq \alpha$ accept the proposal state $x_i^*$ and set $x_i^{(t)}=x_i^*$

else set $x_i^{(t)} = x_i^{(t-1)}$

Note that in the component-wise implementation a sample for the $i$ -th dimension is proposed, then accepted or rejected while all other dimensions ( $j \neq i$ ) are held fixed. We then move on to the next ( $(i + 1)$ -th) dimension and repeat the process while holding all other variables ( $j \neq (i + 1)$ ) fixed. In each successive step we are using updated values for the dimensions that have occurred since increasing $(t -1) \rightarrow t$ .

Example 2: Component-wise Metropolis-Hastings for sampling of bivariate Normal distribution

In this example we draw samples from the same bivariate Normal target distribution described in Example 1, but using component-wise updates. Therefore $p(x)$ is the same, however, the proposal distribution $q(x)$ is now a univariate Normal distribution with unit unit variance in the direction of the $i$ -th dimension to be sampled. The MATLAB implementation of the component-wise sampler is at the end of the section. The samples and comparison to the analytic target distribution are shown below.

Samples drawn from component-wise Metropolis-Hastings algorithm compared to target distribution

Again, we see that we get a good characterization of the bivariate target distribution.

Wrapping Up

Here we saw how we can use block- and component-wise updates to derive two different implementations of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. In the next post we will use component-wise updates introduced above to motivate the Gibbs sampler, which is often used to increase the efficiency of sampling well-defined probability multivariate distributions.

Posted in Algorithms, Sampling, Sampling Methods, Simulations, Statistics

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Tags: Bivariate Gaussian, Block-wise Updates, Component-wise Updates, Gibbs Sampler, MCMC, Metropolis-Hastings Sampling,Multivariate Sampling Methods

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