arXiv Machine Learning

A Deterministic Sampling Method via Maximum Mean Discrepancy Flow with Adaptive Kernel

arXiv:2111. 10722v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We propose a novel deterministic sampling method, EVI-MMD, to approximate a target distribution $\rho^*$ by minimizing the kernel discrepancy, also known as the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD).

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 31

Improved off-policy training of diffusion samplers

The paper investigates training diffusion models to sample from distributions defined by unnormalized densities or energy functions. It benchmarks various diffusion-structured inference techniques, including simulation-based variational methods and off-policy approaches such as continuous generative flow networks, highlighting their relative strengths and challenging some prior claims. Additionally, the authors introduce a new exploration strategy for off-policy methods that employs local search in the target space with a replay buffer, demonstrating improved sample quality across multiple target distributions.

By Marcin Sendera, Minsu Kim, Sarthak Mittal, Pablo Lemos, Luca Scimeca, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Alexandre Adam, Yoshua Bengio, Esmeralda S. Whitammer
arXiv AI
Jun 10

MMD Guidance: Training-Free Distribution Adaptation for Diffusion Models via Maximum Mean Discrepancy Guidance

arXiv:2601. 08379v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Pre-trained diffusion models have emerged as powerful generative priors for both unconditional and conditional sample generation, yet their outputs often deviate from the characteristics of user-specific target data.

By Matina Mahdizadeh Sani, Nima Jamali, Mohammad Jalali, Farzan Farnia
arXiv AI
Jun 2

Efficient Weighted Sampling via Score-based Generative Models

arXiv:2502. 04646v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Weighted sampling -- sampling from a probability density function (PDF) proportional to the product of a base PDF and a weight function -- is a fundamental technique with wide-ranging applications in variance reduction, biased sampling, data augmentation, and more.

By Heasung Kim, Taekyun Lee, Hyeji Kim, Gustavo de Veciana
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 24

Amortized Bandwidth Learning for Kernel Density Estimation under Logarithmic Score

The paper introduces an amortized learning framework for selecting bandwidths in kernel density estimation by optimizing the logarithmic score across a distribution of tasks. It uses a truncated-and-renormalized bounded-support formulation and affine standardization to achieve stable learning and transferability across different intervals. Experiments on Gaussian samples, a multi-family benchmark, and randomized Gaussian mixtures demonstrate that the learned selector outperforms traditional methods such as Silverman’s rule, Sheather–Jones, and least‑squares cross‑validation, especially for small or heterogeneous samples.

By Junyi Liang, Hailiang Du