We describe a general technique for estimating the intractable quantities that occur in a wide variety of largescale probabilistic models. The technique transforms intractable sums into integrals which are subsequently approximated via saddle point methods. When applied to sigmoid and noisy-OR networks, the technique yields a generic mean-field approximation as well as a second order Gaussian a...

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The problem of map building is the problem of determining the location of entities-of-interest in a global frame of reference. Over the last years, probabilistic methods have shown to be well suited for dealing with the uncertainties involved in mobile robot map building. In this paper we introduce a general probabilistic approach to concurrent mapping and localization. This method poses the ma...

This paper attacks a Japanese syllable-substitution cipher. We use a probabilistic, noisy-channel framework, exploiting various Japanese language models to drive the decipherment. We describe several innovations, including a new objective function for searching for the highestscoring decipherment. We include empirical studies of the relevant phenomena, and we give improved decipherment accuracy...

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We investigate the boundary between classical and quantum computational power. This work consists of two parts. First we develop new classical simulation algorithms that are centered on sampling methods. Using these techniques we generate new classes of classically simulatable quantum circuits where standard techniques relying on the exact computation of measurement probabilities fail to provid...

We study two-layer belief networks of binary random variables in which the conditional probabilities Pr[childjparents] depend monotonically on weighted sums of the parents. In large networks where exact probabilistic inference is intractable, we show how to compute upper and lower bounds on many probabilities of interest. In particular, using methods from large deviation theory, we derive rigor...

Combinatorics is an essential component of many mathematical areas, and its study has exprienced an impressive growth in recent years. This survey contains a discussion of two of the main general techniques that played a crucial role in the development of modern combinatorics; algebraic methods and probabilistic methods. Both techniques are illustrated by examples, where the emphasis is on the ...

In this paper, we formalize the Menger probabilistic normed space as a category in which its objects are the Menger probabilistic normed spaces and its morphisms are fuzzy continuous operators. Then, we show that the category of probabilistic normed spaces is isomorphicly a subcategory of the category of topological vector spaces. So, we can easily apply the results of topological vector spaces...