1,081 research outputs found
copulaedas: An R Package for Estimation of Distribution Algorithms Based on Copulas
The use of copula-based models in EDAs (estimation of distribution
algorithms) is currently an active area of research. In this context, the
copulaedas package for R provides a platform where EDAs based on copulas can be
implemented and studied. The package offers complete implementations of various
EDAs based on copulas and vines, a group of well-known optimization problems,
and utility functions to study the performance of the algorithms. Newly
developed EDAs can be easily integrated into the package by extending an S4
class with generic functions for their main components. This paper presents
copulaedas by providing an overview of EDAs based on copulas, a description of
the implementation of the package, and an illustration of its use through
examples. The examples include running the EDAs defined in the package,
implementing new algorithms, and performing an empirical study to compare the
behavior of different algorithms on benchmark functions and a real-world
problem
Markov Network Structure Learning via Ensemble-of-Forests Models
Real world systems typically feature a variety of different dependency types
and topologies that complicate model selection for probabilistic graphical
models. We introduce the ensemble-of-forests model, a generalization of the
ensemble-of-trees model. Our model enables structure learning of Markov random
fields (MRF) with multiple connected components and arbitrary potentials. We
present two approximate inference techniques for this model and demonstrate
their performance on synthetic data. Our results suggest that the
ensemble-of-forests approach can accurately recover sparse, possibly
disconnected MRF topologies, even in presence of non-Gaussian dependencies
and/or low sample size. We applied the ensemble-of-forests model to learn the
structure of perturbed signaling networks of immune cells and found that these
frequently exhibit non-Gaussian dependencies with disconnected MRF topologies.
In summary, we expect that the ensemble-of-forests model will enable MRF
structure learning in other high dimensional real world settings that are
governed by non-trivial dependencies.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
- …