Before revision:  The simulation study demonstrates that VB can be a fast and scalable alternative to MSL and MCMC  , especially in applications in which fast predictions are paramount , as VB is observed to be between 2.8 and 17.7 times faster than the two competing methods . Furthermore , the simulation study shows that a parallelised implementation of the MSL estimator with analytical gradients is a viable alternative to MCMC in terms of both estimation accuracy and computational efficiency .
After revision:  The simulation study demonstrates that VB can be a fast and scalable alternative to MSL and MCMC , especially in applications in which fast predictions are paramount , as VB is observed to be between 2.8 and 17.7 times faster than the two competing methods , while affording comparable or superior accuracy. Besides , the simulation study shows that a parallelised implementation of the MSL estimator with analytical gradients is a viable alternative to MCMC in terms of both estimation accuracy and computational efficiency .