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Concept
Markov chain Monte Carlo
Summary
In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution. By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain a sample of the desired distribution by recording states from the chain. The more steps that are included, the more closely the distribution of the sample matches the actual desired distribution. Various algorithms exist for constructing chains, including the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm.
MCMC methods are primarily used for calculating numerical approximations of multi-dimensional integrals, for example in Bayesian statistics, computational physics, computational biology and computational linguistics.
In Bayesian statistics, the recent development of MCMC methods has made it possible to compute large hierarchical models that require integrations over hundreds to thousands of unknown parameters.
In rare event sampling, they are also used for generating samples that gradually populate the rare failure region.
Markov chain Monte Carlo methods create samples from a continuous random variable, with probability density proportional to a known function. These samples can be used to evaluate an integral over that variable, as its expected value or variance.
Practically, an ensemble of chains is generally developed, starting from a set of points arbitrarily chosen and sufficiently distant from each other. These chains are stochastic processes of "walkers" which move around randomly according to an algorithm that looks for places with a reasonably high contribution to the integral to move into next, assigning them higher probabilities.
Random walk Monte Carlo methods are a kind of random simulation or Monte Carlo method. However, whereas the random samples of the integrand used in a conventional Monte Carlo integration are statistically independent, those used in MCMC are autocorrelated. Correlations of samples introduces the need to use the Markov chain central limit theorem when estimating the error of mean values.
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