"Flexible Variational Bayes Based on a Copula of a Mixture" by David Gunawan, Robert Kohn et al.
Variational Bayes methods approximate the posterior density by a family of tractable distributions whose parameters are estimated by optimization. Variational approximation is useful when exact inference is intractable or very costly. Our article develops a flexible variational approximation based on a copula of a mixture, which is implemented by combining boosting, natural gradient, and a variance reduction method. The efficacy of the approach is illustrated by using simulated and real datasets to approximate multimodal, skewed and heavy-tailed posterior distributions, including an applicatio...
Source: uow.edu.au