15,657 research outputs found
On Similarities between Inference in Game Theory and Machine Learning
In this paper, we elucidate the equivalence between inference in game theory and machine learning. Our aim in so doing is to establish an equivalent vocabulary between the two domains so as to facilitate developments at the intersection of both fields, and as proof of the usefulness of this approach, we use recent developments in each field to make useful improvements to the other. More specifically, we consider the analogies between smooth best responses in fictitious play and Bayesian inference methods. Initially, we use these insights to develop and demonstrate an improved algorithm for learning in games based on probabilistic moderation. That is, by integrating over the distribution of opponent strategies (a Bayesian approach within machine learning) rather than taking a simple empirical average (the approach used in standard fictitious play) we derive a novel moderated fictitious play algorithm and show that it is more likely than standard fictitious play to converge to a payoff-dominant but risk-dominated Nash equilibrium in a simple coordination game. Furthermore we consider the converse case, and show how insights from game theory can be used to derive two improved mean field variational learning algorithms. We first show that the standard update rule of mean field variational learning is analogous to a Cournot adjustment within game theory. By analogy with fictitious play, we then suggest an improved update rule, and show that this results in fictitious variational play, an improved mean field variational learning algorithm that exhibits better convergence in highly or strongly connected graphical models. Second, we use a recent advance in fictitious play, namely dynamic fictitious play, to derive a derivative action variational learning algorithm, that exhibits superior convergence properties on a canonical machine learning problem (clustering a mixture distribution)
Convergence rates of posterior distributions for noniid observations
We consider the asymptotic behavior of posterior distributions and Bayes
estimators based on observations which are required to be neither independent
nor identically distributed. We give general results on the rate of convergence
of the posterior measure relative to distances derived from a testing
criterion. We then specialize our results to independent, nonidentically
distributed observations, Markov processes, stationary Gaussian time series and
the white noise model. We apply our general results to several examples of
infinite-dimensional statistical models including nonparametric regression with
normal errors, binary regression, Poisson regression, an interval censoring
model, Whittle estimation of the spectral density of a time series and a
nonlinear autoregressive model.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053606000001172 in the
Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Sequential Bayesian inference for static parameters in dynamic state space models
A method for sequential Bayesian inference of the static parameters of a
dynamic state space model is proposed. The method is based on the observation
that many dynamic state space models have a relatively small number of static
parameters (or hyper-parameters), so that in principle the posterior can be
computed and stored on a discrete grid of practical size which can be tracked
dynamically. Further to this, this approach is able to use any existing
methodology which computes the filtering and prediction distributions of the
state process. Kalman filter and its extensions to non-linear/non-Gaussian
situations have been used in this paper. This is illustrated using several
applications: linear Gaussian model, Binomial model, stochastic volatility
model and the extremely non-linear univariate non-stationary growth model.
Performance has been compared to both existing on-line method and off-line
methods
Chain ladder method: Bayesian bootstrap versus classical bootstrap
The intention of this paper is to estimate a Bayesian distribution-free chain
ladder (DFCL) model using approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) methodology.
We demonstrate how to estimate quantities of interest in claims reserving and
compare the estimates to those obtained from classical and credibility
approaches. In this context, a novel numerical procedure utilising Markov chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC), ABC and a Bayesian bootstrap procedure was developed in a
truly distribution-free setting. The ABC methodology arises because we work in
a distribution-free setting in which we make no parametric assumptions, meaning
we can not evaluate the likelihood point-wise or in this case simulate directly
from the likelihood model. The use of a bootstrap procedure allows us to
generate samples from the intractable likelihood without the requirement of
distributional assumptions, this is crucial to the ABC framework. The developed
methodology is used to obtain the empirical distribution of the DFCL model
parameters and the predictive distribution of the outstanding loss liabilities
conditional on the observed claims. We then estimate predictive Bayesian
capital estimates, the Value at Risk (VaR) and the mean square error of
prediction (MSEP). The latter is compared with the classical bootstrap and
credibility methods
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