TY - BOOK A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Introduction to Uncertainty Quantification Y1 - 2015 SN - 978-3-319-23394-9 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23395-6 VL - 63 PB - Springer ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Owhadi, Houman A1 - Scovel, Clint A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - On the Brittleness of Bayesian Inference JF - SIAM Review N2 - With the advent of high-performance computing, Bayesian methods are becoming increasingly popular tools for the quantification of uncertainty throughout science and industry. Since these methods can impact the making of sometimes critical decisions in increasingly complicated contexts, the sensitivity of their posterior conclusions with respect to the underlying models and prior beliefs is a pressing question to which there currently exist positive and negative answers. We report new results suggesting that, although Bayesian methods are robust when the number of possible outcomes is finite or when only a finite number of marginals of the data-generating distribution are unknown, they could be generically brittle when applied to continuous systems (and their discretizations) with finite information on the data-generating distribution. If closeness is defined in terms of the total variation (TV) metric or the matching of a finite system of generalized moments, then (1) two practitioners who use arbitrarily close models and observe the same (possibly arbitrarily large amount of) data may reach opposite conclusions; and (2) any given prior and model can be slightly perturbed to achieve any desired posterior conclusion. The mechanism causing brittleness/robustness suggests that learning and robustness are antagonistic requirements, which raises the possibility of a missing stability condition when using Bayesian inference in a continuous world under finite information. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/130938633 VL - 57 IS - 4 SP - 566 EP - 582 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lie, Han Cheng A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Cameron--Martin theorems for sequences of Cauchy-distributed random variables JF - arXiv N2 - Given a sequence of Cauchy-distributed random variables defined by a sequence of location parameters and a sequence of scale parameters, we consider another sequence of random variables that is obtained by perturbing the location or scale parameter sequences. Using a result of Kakutani on equivalence of infinite product measures, we provide sufficient conditions for the equivalence of laws of the two sequences. Y1 - 2016 SP - 1608.03784 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lie, Han Cheng A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Cameron--Martin theorems for sequences of Cauchy-distributed random variables N2 - Given a sequence of Cauchy-distributed random variables defined by a sequence of location parameters and a sequence of scale parameters, we consider another sequence of random variables that is obtained by perturbing the location or scale parameter sequences. Using a result of Kakutani on equivalence of infinite product measures, we provide sufficient conditions for the equivalence of laws of the two sequences. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-40 Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-60230 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Well-posed Bayesian inverse problems and heavy-tailed stable Banach space priors N2 - This article extends the framework of Bayesian inverse problems in infinite-dimensional parameter spaces, as advocated by Stuart (Acta Numer. 19:451–559, 2010) and others, to the case of a heavy-tailed prior measure in the family of stable distributions, such as an infinite-dimensional Cauchy distribution, for which polynomial moments are infinite or undefined. It is shown that analogues of the Karhunen–Loève expansion for square-integrable random variables can be used to sample such measures. Furthermore, under weaker regularity assumptions than those used to date, the Bayesian posterior measure is shown to depend Lipschitz continuously in the Hellinger metric upon perturbations of the misfit function and observed data. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-30 KW - Bayesian inverse problems KW - heavy-tailed distribution KW - Karhunen–Loève expansion KW - stable distribution KW - uncertainty quantification KW - well-posedness Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-59422 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Cockayne, Jon A1 - Oates, Chris A1 - Sullivan, T. J. A1 - Girolami, Mark T1 - Probabilistic Meshless Methods for Partial Differential Equations and Bayesian Inverse Problems N2 - This paper develops a class of meshless methods that are well-suited to statistical inverse problems involving partial differential equations (PDEs). The methods discussed in this paper view the forcing term in the PDE as a random field that induces a probability distribution over the residual error of a symmetric collocation method. This construction enables the solution of challenging inverse problems while accounting, in a rigorous way, for the impact of the discretisation of the forward problem. In particular, this confers robustness to failure of meshless methods, with statistical inferences driven to be more conservative in the presence of significant solver error. In addition, (i) a principled learning-theoretic approach to minimise the impact of solver error is developed, and (ii) the challenging setting of inverse problems with a non-linear forward model is considered. The method is applied to parameter inference problems in which non-negligible solver error must be accounted for in order to draw valid statistical conclusions. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-31 KW - Probabilistic Numerics KW - Partial Differential Equations KW - Inverse Problems KW - Meshless Methods KW - Gaussian Processes KW - Pseudo-Marginal MCMC Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-59513 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Cockayne, Jon A1 - Oates, Chris A1 - Sullivan, T. J. A1 - Girolami, Mark T1 - Probabilistic Numerical Methods for PDE-constrained Bayesian Inverse Problems T2 - Proceedings of the 36th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering N2 - This paper develops meshless methods for probabilistically describing discretisation error in the numerical solution of partial differential equations. This construction enables the solution of Bayesian inverse problems while accounting for the impact of the discretisation of the forward problem. In particular, this drives statistical inferences to be more conservative in the presence of significant solver error. Theoretical results are presented describing rates of convergence for the posteriors in both the forward and inverse problems. This method is tested on a challenging inverse problem with a nonlinear forward model Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4985359 VL - 1853 SP - 060001-1 EP - 060001-8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schuster, Ingmar A1 - Constantine, Paul A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Exact active subspace Metropolis–Hastings, with applications to the Lorenz-96 system N2 - We consider the application of active subspaces to inform a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, thereby aggressively reducing the computational dimension of the sampling problem. We show that the original formulation, as proposed by Constantine, Kent, and Bui-Thanh (SIAM J. Sci. Comput., 38(5):A2779-A2805, 2016), possesses asymptotic bias. Using pseudo-marginal arguments, we develop an asymptotically unbiased variant. Our algorithm is applied to a synthetic multimodal target distribution as well as a Bayesian formulation of a parameter inference problem for a Lorenz-96 system. Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Well-posedness of Bayesian inverse problems in quasi-Banach spaces with stable priors T2 - 88th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (GAMM), Weimar 2017 Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/pamm.201710402 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 871 EP - 874 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - Well-posed Bayesian inverse problems and heavy-tailed stable quasi-Banach space priors JF - Inverse Problems and Imaging Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3934/ipi.2017040 VL - 11 IS - 5 SP - 857 EP - 874 ER -