p>
<p>An MCMC <em>sample</em> consists of a set of a sequence of <span class="math inline">\(M\)</span> Markov chains,
each consisting of an ordered sequence of <span class="math inline">\(N\)</span> <em>draws</em> from the
posterior.<a href="#fn26" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref26"><sup>26</sup></a> The sample
thus consists of <span class="math inline">\(M \times N\)</span> draws from the posterior.</p>
<div id="potential-scale-reduction" class="section level3">
<h3 number="16.3.1"><span class="header-sect