1,844 research outputs found
A Bayesian Nonparametric Markovian Model for Nonstationary Time Series
Stationary time series models built from parametric distributions are, in
general, limited in scope due to the assumptions imposed on the residual
distribution and autoregression relationship. We present a modeling approach
for univariate time series data, which makes no assumptions of stationarity,
and can accommodate complex dynamics and capture nonstandard distributions. The
model for the transition density arises from the conditional distribution
implied by a Bayesian nonparametric mixture of bivariate normals. This implies
a flexible autoregressive form for the conditional transition density, defining
a time-homogeneous, nonstationary, Markovian model for real-valued data indexed
in discrete-time. To obtain a more computationally tractable algorithm for
posterior inference, we utilize a square-root-free Cholesky decomposition of
the mixture kernel covariance matrix. Results from simulated data suggest the
model is able to recover challenging transition and predictive densities. We
also illustrate the model on time intervals between eruptions of the Old
Faithful geyser. Extensions to accommodate higher order structure and to
develop a state-space model are also discussed
A Simple Class of Bayesian Nonparametric Autoregression Models
We introduce a model for a time series of continuous outcomes, that can be expressed as fully nonparametric regression or density regression on lagged terms. The model is based on a dependent Dirichlet process prior on a family of random probability measures indexed by the lagged covariates. The approach is also extended to sequences of binary responses. We discuss implementation and applications of the models to a sequence of waiting times between eruptions of the Old Faithful Geyser, and to a dataset consisting of sequences of recurrence indicators for tumors in the bladder of several patients.MIUR 2008MK3AFZFONDECYT 1100010NIH/NCI R01CA075981Mathematic
Bayesian Nonparametric Calibration and Combination of Predictive Distributions
We introduce a Bayesian approach to predictive density calibration and
combination that accounts for parameter uncertainty and model set
incompleteness through the use of random calibration functionals and random
combination weights. Building on the work of Ranjan, R. and Gneiting, T. (2010)
and Gneiting, T. and Ranjan, R. (2013), we use infinite beta mixtures for the
calibration. The proposed Bayesian nonparametric approach takes advantage of
the flexibility of Dirichlet process mixtures to achieve any continuous
deformation of linearly combined predictive distributions. The inference
procedure is based on Gibbs sampling and allows accounting for uncertainty in
the number of mixture components, mixture weights, and calibration parameters.
The weak posterior consistency of the Bayesian nonparametric calibration is
provided under suitable conditions for unknown true density. We study the
methodology in simulation examples with fat tails and multimodal densities and
apply it to density forecasts of daily S&P returns and daily maximum wind speed
at the Frankfurt airport.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1305.2026 by other author
Hierarchical Decomposition of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control for System Identification and Policy Distillation
The control of nonlinear dynamical systems remains a major challenge for
autonomous agents. Current trends in reinforcement learning (RL) focus on
complex representations of dynamics and policies, which have yielded impressive
results in solving a variety of hard control tasks. However, this new
sophistication and extremely over-parameterized models have come with the cost
of an overall reduction in our ability to interpret the resulting policies. In
this paper, we take inspiration from the control community and apply the
principles of hybrid switching systems in order to break down complex dynamics
into simpler components. We exploit the rich representational power of
probabilistic graphical models and derive an expectation-maximization (EM)
algorithm for learning a sequence model to capture the temporal structure of
the data and automatically decompose nonlinear dynamics into stochastic
switching linear dynamical systems. Moreover, we show how this framework of
switching models enables extracting hierarchies of Markovian and
auto-regressive locally linear controllers from nonlinear experts in an
imitation learning scenario.Comment: 2nd Annual Conference on Learning for Dynamics and Contro
Dynamic density estimation with diffusive Dirichlet mixtures
We introduce a new class of nonparametric prior distributions on the space of
continuously varying densities, induced by Dirichlet process mixtures which
diffuse in time. These select time-indexed random functions without jumps,
whose sections are continuous or discrete distributions depending on the choice
of kernel. The construction exploits the widely used stick-breaking
representation of the Dirichlet process and induces the time dependence by
replacing the stick-breaking components with one-dimensional Wright-Fisher
diffusions. These features combine appealing properties of the model, inherited
from the Wright-Fisher diffusions and the Dirichlet mixture structure, with
great flexibility and tractability for posterior computation. The construction
can be easily extended to multi-parameter GEM marginal states, which include,
for example, the Pitman--Yor process. A full inferential strategy is detailed
and illustrated on simulated and real data.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/14-BEJ681 in the Bernoulli
(http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical
Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm
Evolutionary Inference for Function-valued Traits: Gaussian Process Regression on Phylogenies
Biological data objects often have both of the following features: (i) they
are functions rather than single numbers or vectors, and (ii) they are
correlated due to phylogenetic relationships. In this paper we give a flexible
statistical model for such data, by combining assumptions from phylogenetics
with Gaussian processes. We describe its use as a nonparametric Bayesian prior
distribution, both for prediction (placing posterior distributions on ancestral
functions) and model selection (comparing rates of evolution across a
phylogeny, or identifying the most likely phylogenies consistent with the
observed data). Our work is integrative, extending the popular phylogenetic
Brownian Motion and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models to functional data and Bayesian
inference, and extending Gaussian Process regression to phylogenies. We provide
a brief illustration of the application of our method.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
Nonparametric tests of the Markov hypothesis in continuous-time models
We propose several statistics to test the Markov hypothesis for
-mixing stationary processes sampled at discrete time intervals. Our
tests are based on the Chapman--Kolmogorov equation. We establish the
asymptotic null distributions of the proposed test statistics, showing that
Wilks's phenomenon holds. We compute the power of the test and provide
simulations to investigate the finite sample performance of the test statistics
when the null model is a diffusion process, with alternatives consisting of
models with a stochastic mean reversion level, stochastic volatility and jumps.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOS763 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Time-series Modelling, Stationarity and Bayesian Nonparametric Methods
In this paper we introduce two general non-parametric first-order stationary time-series models for which marginal (invariant) and transition distributions are expressed as infinite-dimensional mixtures. That feature makes them the first Bayesian stationary fully non-parametric models developed so far. We draw on the discussion of using stationary models in practice, as a motivation, and advocate the view that flexible (non-parametric) stationary models might be a source for reliable inferences and predictions. It will be noticed that our models adequately fit in the Bayesian inference framework due to a suitable representation theorem. A stationary scale-mixture model is developed as a particular case along with a computational strategy for posterior inference and predictions. The usefulness of that model is illustrated with the analysis of Euro/USD exchange rate log-returns.Stationarity, Markov processes, Dynamic mixture models, Random probability measures, Conditional random probability measures, Latent processes.
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