Running Pathfinder on Turing.jl models

This tutorial demonstrates how Turing can be used with Pathfinder.

We'll demonstrate with a regression example.

using AbstractMCMC, AdvancedHMC, DynamicPPL, FlexiChains, MCMCChains, Pathfinder, Random, Turing
Random.seed!(39)

@model function regress(x)
    α ~ Normal()
    β ~ Normal()
    σ ~ truncated(Normal(); lower=0)
    μ = α .+ β .* x
    y ~ product_distribution(Normal.(μ, σ))
end
x = 0:0.1:10
true_params = (; α=1.5, β=2, σ=2)
# simulate data
y = rand(regress(x) | true_params)[@varname(y)]

model = regress(x) | (; y)
n_chains = 8

For convenience, pathfinder and multipathfinder can take Turing models as inputs and produce FlexiChains.VNChain objects as outputs. To access this, we run Pathfinder normally; the chains representation of the draws is stored in draws_transformed, with the type defaulting to whatever Turing.sample itself defaults to.

Turing pre-v0.45 backward-compatibility

Since Turing v0.45, the default chain_type is FlexiChains.VNChain, while previous versions returned MCMCChains.Chains. Pathfinder will return the same default chain type that your installed Turing version returns, but you can always specify the chain_type manually. This tutorial uses the new default (FlexiChains) throughout; see Using MCMCChains below if you still want MCMCChains.Chains.

result_single = pathfinder(model; ndraws=1_000)
Single-path Pathfinder result
  tries: 1
  draws: 1000
  fit iteration: 11 (total: 19)
  fit ELBO: -213.6 ± 0.15
  fit distribution: MvNormal{Float64, Pathfinder.WoodburyPDMat{Float64, LinearAlgebra.Diagonal{Float64, Vector{Float64}}, Matrix{Float64}, Matrix{Float64}, Pathfinder.WoodburyPDFactorization{Float64, LinearAlgebra.Diagonal{Float64, Vector{Float64}}, LinearAlgebra.QRCompactWYQ{Float64, Matrix{Float64}, Matrix{Float64}}, LinearAlgebra.UpperTriangular{Float64, Matrix{Float64}}}}, Vector{Float64}}(
dim: 3
μ: [1.6508952824878806, 1.9311755822668364, 0.5801240686071575]
Σ: [0.11095087456373508 -0.016539481905092007 -0.0015269282137262683; -0.016539481905092007 0.003408329839783224 0.00020558840423764497; -0.001526928213726264 0.00020558840423764454 0.004600836541139295]
)
result_single.draws_transformed
╭─FlexiChain (1000 iterations, 1 chain) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
 ↓ iter  = 1:1000                                                                                 
 → chain = 1:1                                                                                    
                                                                                                  
 Parameters (3) ── VarName                                                                        
  Float64  α, β, σ                                                                                
                                                                                                  
 Extras (3)                                                                                       
  Float64  logprior, loglikelihood, logjoint                                                      
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Note that while Turing's sample methods default to initializing parameters from the prior with InitFromPrior, Pathfinder defaults to uniformly sampling them in the range [-2, 2] in unconstrained space (equivalent to Turing's InitFromUniform(-2, 2)). To use Turing's default in Pathfinder, specify init_sampler=InitFromPrior().

result_multi = multipathfinder(model, 1_000; nruns=n_chains, init_sampler=InitFromPrior())
Multi-path Pathfinder result
  runs: 8
  draws: 1000
  Pareto shape diagnostic: 0.62 (ok)

The Pareto shape diagnostic indicates that it is likely safe to use these draws to compute posterior estimates.

chns_pf = result_multi.draws_transformed
summarystats(chns_pf)
╭─FlexiSummary (9 statistics) ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
   iter    collapsed                                                                              
   chain   collapsed                                                                              
 ↓ stat  = [mean, std, mcse, ess_bulk, ess_tail, rhat, q5, q50, q95]                              
                                                                                                  
 Parameters (3) ── VarName                                                                        
  Float64  α, β, σ                                                                                
                                                                                                  
 Extras (3)                                                                                       
  Float64  logprior, loglikelihood, logjoint                                                      
                                                                                                  
 Summary                                                                                          
   param    mean     std    mcse   ess_bulk   ess_tail    rhat      q5     q50     q95            
       α  1.6494  0.3125  0.0098  1015.4812   901.4612  1.0005  1.1273  1.6756  2.1899            
       β  1.9300  0.0551  0.0017  1007.6980  1023.0661  1.0012  1.8372  1.9307  2.0266            
       σ  1.8090  0.1265  0.0038  1116.1143   944.3411  0.9990  1.5988  1.8031  2.0357            
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

We can also use these draws to initialize MCMC sampling with InitFromParams. resample with replace=false selects n_chains distinct draws (importance-weighted) from the candidate pool; see Resampling for details.

init_result = resample(result_multi, n_chains; replace=false)
params = AbstractMCMC.to_samples(DynamicPPL.ParamsWithStats, init_result.draws_transformed, model)
initial_params = [InitFromParams(p.params) for p in vec(params)]
chns = sample(model, Turing.NUTS(), MCMCThreads(), 1_000, n_chains; initial_params, progress=false)
summarystats(chns)
╭─FlexiSummary (9 statistics) ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
   iter    collapsed                                                                              
   chain   collapsed                                                                              
 ↓ stat  = [mean, std, mcse, ess_bulk, ess_tail, rhat, q5, q50, q95]                              
                                                                                                  
 Parameters (3) ── VarName                                                                        
  Float64  α, β, σ                                                                                
                                                                                                  
 Extras (14)                                                                                      
  Float64  n_steps, is_accept, acceptance_rate, log_density, hamiltonian_energy,                  
           hamiltonian_energy_error, max_hamiltonian_energy_error, tree_depth, numerical_error,   
           step_size, nom_step_size, logprior, loglikelihood, logjoint                            
                                                                                                  
 Summary                                                                                          
   param    mean     std    mcse   ess_bulk   ess_tail    rhat      q5     q50     q95            
       α  1.6431  0.3426  0.0056  3745.1762  3479.6185  1.0001  1.0777  1.6488  2.2006            
       β  1.9322  0.0600  0.0010  3723.6184  3923.1560  1.0000  1.8344  1.9312  2.0318            
       σ  1.8190  0.1295  0.0018  5198.0028  5005.0985  0.9999  1.6181  1.8120  2.0417            
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

We can use Pathfinder's estimate of the metric and only perform enough warm-up to tune the step size.

inv_metric = result_multi.pathfinder_results[1].fit_distribution.Σ
metric = AdvancedHMC.RankUpdateEuclideanMetric(inv_metric)
kernel = HMCKernel(Trajectory{MultinomialTS}(Leapfrog(0.0), GeneralisedNoUTurn()))
adaptor = StepSizeAdaptor(0.8, 1.0)  # adapt only the step size
nuts = AdvancedHMC.HMCSampler(kernel, metric, adaptor)

n_adapts = 50
n_draws = 1_000
chns = sample(
    model,
    externalsampler(nuts),
    MCMCThreads(),
    n_draws + n_adapts,
    n_chains;
    n_adapts,
    initial_params,
    progress=false,
)[iter=(n_adapts + 1):(n_adapts + n_draws)]  # drop warm-up draws
summarystats(chns)
╭─FlexiSummary (9 statistics) ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
   iter    collapsed                                                                              
   chain   collapsed                                                                              
 ↓ stat  = [mean, std, mcse, ess_bulk, ess_tail, rhat, q5, q50, q95]                              
                                                                                                  
 Parameters (3) ── VarName                                                                        
  Float64  α, β, σ                                                                                
                                                                                                  
 Extras (14)                                                                                      
  Float64  n_steps, is_accept, acceptance_rate, log_density, hamiltonian_energy,                  
           hamiltonian_energy_error, max_hamiltonian_energy_error, tree_depth, numerical_error,   
           step_size, nom_step_size, logprior, loglikelihood, logjoint                            
                                                                                                  
 Summary                                                                                          
   param    mean     std    mcse   ess_bulk   ess_tail    rhat      q5     q50     q95            
       α  1.6379  0.3339  0.0034  9605.4276  6552.5187  0.9999  1.0874  1.6411  2.1762            
       β  1.9330  0.0590  0.0006  9834.4281  5824.5163  0.9999  1.8360  1.9319  2.0312            
       σ  1.8134  0.1281  0.0013  9569.4864  6052.6641  1.0001  1.6168  1.8068  2.0362            
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

See Initializing HMC with Pathfinder for further examples.

Using MCMCChains

To request transformed draws be returned as MCMCChains.Chains instead of the default, you may specify chain_type directly.

result_multi_mcmc = multipathfinder(
    model, 1_000; nruns=n_chains, init_sampler=InitFromPrior(), chain_type=MCMCChains.Chains
)
chns_pf_mcmc = result_multi_mcmc.draws_transformed
Chains MCMC chain (1000×6×1 Array{Float64, 3}):

Iterations        = 1:1:1000
Number of chains  = 1
Samples per chain = 1000
parameters        = α, β, σ
internals         = logprior, loglikelihood, logjoint

Use `describe(chains)` for summary statistics and quantiles.

As before, we can use these draws to initialize MCMC sampling with InitFromParams:

init_result_mcmc = resample(result_multi_mcmc, n_chains; replace=false)
params_mcmcchains = AbstractMCMC.to_samples(
    DynamicPPL.ParamsWithStats, init_result_mcmc.draws_transformed, model
)
initial_params_mcmcchains = [InitFromParams(p.params) for p in vec(params_mcmcchains)]