Efficient block sampling strategies for sequential Monte Carlo methods

Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are a powerful set of simulation-based techniques for sampling sequentially from a sequence of complex probability distributions. These methods rely on a combination of importance sampling and resampling techniques. In a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) framework, block sampling strategies often perform much better than algorithms based on one-at-a-time sampling strategies if "good" proposal distributions to update blocks of variables can be designed. In an SMC framework, standard algorithms sequentially sample the variables one at a time whereas, like MCMC, the efficiency of algorithms could be improved significantly by using block sampling strategies. Unfortunately, a direct implementation of such strategies is impossible as it requires the knowledge of integrals which do not admit closed-form expressions. This article introduces a new methodology which by-passes this problem and is a natural extension of standard SMC methods. Applications to several sequential Bayesian inference problems demonstrate these methods. © 2006 American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and Interface Foundation of North America