Metropolis Hastings

In Hakaru, all inference algorithms are represented as program transformations. In particular, the Metropolis-Hastings transform takes as input a probabilistic program representing the target distribution, and a probabilistic program representing the proposal distribution and returns a probabilistic program representing the MH transition kernel.

mh command

You can access this functionality using the mh command. It takes two files as input representing the target distribution and proposal kernel.

For example, suppose we would like to make a Markov Chain for the normal distribution, where the proposal distribution is a random walk.

Target

# target.hk
normal(0,1)

Proposal

# proposal.hk
fn x real: normal(x, 0.04)

We can use mh to create a transition kernel.

mh target.hk proposal.hk

x5 = x2 = fn x0 real: 
           (exp((negate(((x0 - nat2real(0)) ^ 2))
                  / 
                 prob2real((2 * (nat2prob(1) ^ 2)))))
             / 
            nat2prob(1)
             / 
            sqrt((2 * pi))
             / 
            1)
     fn x1 real: 
      x0 <~ normal(x1, (1/25))
      return (x0, (x2(x0) / x2(x1)))
fn x4 real: 
 x3 <~ x5(x4)
 (match x3: 
   (x1, x2): 
    x0 <~ weight(min(1, x2), return true) <|> 
          weight(real2prob((prob2real(1) - prob2real(min(1, x2)))),
                 return false)
    return (match x0: 
             true: x1
             false: x4))

This can then be simplified.

mh target.hk proposal.hk | hk-maple -c Simplify -

fn x4 real: 
 x03 <~ normal(x4, (1/25))
 weight(min(1, (exp(((x03 ^ 2) * -1/2)) * exp(((x4 ^ 2) / 2)))),
        return x03) <|> 
 weight(real2prob((1
                    + 
                   (prob2real(min(1, (exp(((x03 ^ 2) * -1/2)) * exp(((x4 ^ 2) / 2)))))
                     * 
                    (-1)))),
        return x4)

This can then be run using hakaru. Hakaru when run with two arguments will assume that the first file is a transition kernel, and the second file represents a measure to initialize from.

mh target.hk proposal.hk | hk-maple -c Simplify - | hakaru -w --transition-kernel - target.hk | head

-0.6133542972818671
-0.6111567543723275
-0.5963756142974966
-0.5661156231637984
-0.6280335079595971
-0.616432866701967
-0.6053631512209712
-0.5964839795872353
-0.6020821843203473
-0.6535246137595148