39,143 research outputs found
Assessing coupling dynamics from an ensemble of time series
Finding interdependency relations between (possibly multivariate) time series
provides valuable knowledge about the processes that generate the signals.
Information theory sets a natural framework for non-parametric measures of
several classes of statistical dependencies. However, a reliable estimation
from information-theoretic functionals is hampered when the dependency to be
assessed is brief or evolves in time. Here, we show that these limitations can
be overcome when we have access to an ensemble of independent repetitions of
the time series. In particular, we gear a data-efficient estimator of
probability densities to make use of the full structure of trial-based
measures. By doing so, we can obtain time-resolved estimates for a family of
entropy combinations (including mutual information, transfer entropy, and their
conditional counterparts) which are more accurate than the simple average of
individual estimates over trials. We show with simulated and real data that the
proposed approach allows to recover the time-resolved dynamics of the coupling
between different subsystems
Efficient transfer entropy analysis of non-stationary neural time series
Information theory allows us to investigate information processing in neural
systems in terms of information transfer, storage and modification. Especially
the measure of information transfer, transfer entropy, has seen a dramatic
surge of interest in neuroscience. Estimating transfer entropy from two
processes requires the observation of multiple realizations of these processes
to estimate associated probability density functions. To obtain these
observations, available estimators assume stationarity of processes to allow
pooling of observations over time. This assumption however, is a major obstacle
to the application of these estimators in neuroscience as observed processes
are often non-stationary. As a solution, Gomez-Herrero and colleagues
theoretically showed that the stationarity assumption may be avoided by
estimating transfer entropy from an ensemble of realizations. Such an ensemble
is often readily available in neuroscience experiments in the form of
experimental trials. Thus, in this work we combine the ensemble method with a
recently proposed transfer entropy estimator to make transfer entropy
estimation applicable to non-stationary time series. We present an efficient
implementation of the approach that deals with the increased computational
demand of the ensemble method's practical application. In particular, we use a
massively parallel implementation for a graphics processing unit to handle the
computationally most heavy aspects of the ensemble method. We test the
performance and robustness of our implementation on data from simulated
stochastic processes and demonstrate the method's applicability to
magnetoencephalographic data. While we mainly evaluate the proposed method for
neuroscientific data, we expect it to be applicable in a variety of fields that
are concerned with the analysis of information transfer in complex biological,
social, and artificial systems.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PLOS ON
Information Theoretic Structure Learning with Confidence
Information theoretic measures (e.g. the Kullback Liebler divergence and
Shannon mutual information) have been used for exploring possibly nonlinear
multivariate dependencies in high dimension. If these dependencies are assumed
to follow a Markov factor graph model, this exploration process is called
structure discovery. For discrete-valued samples, estimates of the information
divergence over the parametric class of multinomial models lead to structure
discovery methods whose mean squared error achieves parametric convergence
rates as the sample size grows. However, a naive application of this method to
continuous nonparametric multivariate models converges much more slowly. In
this paper we introduce a new method for nonparametric structure discovery that
uses weighted ensemble divergence estimators that achieve parametric
convergence rates and obey an asymptotic central limit theorem that facilitates
hypothesis testing and other types of statistical validation.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
High-Dimensional Gaussian Graphical Model Selection: Walk Summability and Local Separation Criterion
We consider the problem of high-dimensional Gaussian graphical model
selection. We identify a set of graphs for which an efficient estimation
algorithm exists, and this algorithm is based on thresholding of empirical
conditional covariances. Under a set of transparent conditions, we establish
structural consistency (or sparsistency) for the proposed algorithm, when the
number of samples n=omega(J_{min}^{-2} log p), where p is the number of
variables and J_{min} is the minimum (absolute) edge potential of the graphical
model. The sufficient conditions for sparsistency are based on the notion of
walk-summability of the model and the presence of sparse local vertex
separators in the underlying graph. We also derive novel non-asymptotic
necessary conditions on the number of samples required for sparsistency
Random qubit-states and how best to measure them
We consider the problem of measuring a single qubit, known to have been prepared in either a randomly selected pure state or a randomly selected real pure state. We seek the measurements that provide either the best estimate of the state prepared or maximise the accessible information. Surprisingly, any sensible measurement turns out to be optimal. We discuss the application of these ideas to multiple qubits and higher-dimensional systems
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