35,586 research outputs found
Bayesian Discovery of Multiple Bayesian Networks via Transfer Learning
Bayesian network structure learning algorithms with limited data are being
used in domains such as systems biology and neuroscience to gain insight into
the underlying processes that produce observed data. Learning reliable networks
from limited data is difficult, therefore transfer learning can improve the
robustness of learned networks by leveraging data from related tasks. Existing
transfer learning algorithms for Bayesian network structure learning give a
single maximum a posteriori estimate of network models. Yet, many other models
may be equally likely, and so a more informative result is provided by Bayesian
structure discovery. Bayesian structure discovery algorithms estimate posterior
probabilities of structural features, such as edges. We present transfer
learning for Bayesian structure discovery which allows us to explore the shared
and unique structural features among related tasks. Efficient computation
requires that our transfer learning objective factors into local calculations,
which we prove is given by a broad class of transfer biases. Theoretically, we
show the efficiency of our approach. Empirically, we show that compared to
single task learning, transfer learning is better able to positively identify
true edges. We apply the method to whole-brain neuroimaging data.Comment: 10 page
Probabilistic Programming Concepts
A multitude of different probabilistic programming languages exists today,
all extending a traditional programming language with primitives to support
modeling of complex, structured probability distributions. Each of these
languages employs its own probabilistic primitives, and comes with a particular
syntax, semantics and inference procedure. This makes it hard to understand the
underlying programming concepts and appreciate the differences between the
different languages. To obtain a better understanding of probabilistic
programming, we identify a number of core programming concepts underlying the
primitives used by various probabilistic languages, discuss the execution
mechanisms that they require and use these to position state-of-the-art
probabilistic languages and their implementation. While doing so, we focus on
probabilistic extensions of logic programming languages such as Prolog, which
have been developed since more than 20 years
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