5,211 research outputs found
Learning and Designing Stochastic Processes from Logical Constraints
Stochastic processes offer a flexible mathematical formalism to model and
reason about systems. Most analysis tools, however, start from the premises
that models are fully specified, so that any parameters controlling the
system's dynamics must be known exactly. As this is seldom the case, many
methods have been devised over the last decade to infer (learn) such parameters
from observations of the state of the system. In this paper, we depart from
this approach by assuming that our observations are {\it qualitative}
properties encoded as satisfaction of linear temporal logic formulae, as
opposed to quantitative observations of the state of the system. An important
feature of this approach is that it unifies naturally the system identification
and the system design problems, where the properties, instead of observations,
represent requirements to be satisfied. We develop a principled statistical
estimation procedure based on maximising the likelihood of the system's
parameters, using recent ideas from statistical machine learning. We
demonstrate the efficacy and broad applicability of our method on a range of
simple but non-trivial examples, including rumour spreading in social networks
and hybrid models of gene regulation
Parameter estimation for macroscopic pedestrian dynamics models from microscopic data
In this paper we develop a framework for parameter estimation in macroscopic
pedestrian models using individual trajectories -- microscopic data. We
consider a unidirectional flow of pedestrians in a corridor and assume that the
velocity decreases with the average density according to the fundamental
diagram. Our model is formed from a coupling between a density dependent
stochastic differential equation and a nonlinear partial differential equation
for the density, and is hence of McKean--Vlasov type. We discuss
identifiability of the parameters appearing in the fundamental diagram from
trajectories of individuals, and we introduce optimization and Bayesian methods
to perform the identification. We analyze the performance of the developed
methodologies in various situations, such as for different in- and outflow
conditions, for varying numbers of individual trajectories and for differing
channel geometries
Bayesian Inference for partially observed SDEs Driven by Fractional Brownian Motion
We consider continuous-time diffusion models driven by fractional Brownian
motion. Observations are assumed to possess a non-trivial likelihood given the
latent path. Due to the non-Markovianity and high-dimensionality of the latent
paths, estimating posterior expectations is a computationally challenging
undertaking. We present a reparameterization framework based on the Davies and
Harte method for sampling stationary Gaussian processes and use this framework
to construct a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that allows computationally
efficient Bayesian inference. The Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is based
on a version of hybrid Monte Carlo that delivers increased efficiency when
applied on the high-dimensional latent variables arising in this context. We
specify the methodology on a stochastic volatility model allowing for memory in
the volatility increments through a fractional specification. The methodology
is illustrated on simulated data and on the S&P500/VIX time series and is shown
to be effective. Contrary to a long range dependence attribute of such models
often assumed in the literature, with Hurst parameter larger than 1/2, the
posterior distribution favours values smaller than 1/2, pointing towards medium
range dependence
An Optimal Control Derivation of Nonlinear Smoothing Equations
The purpose of this paper is to review and highlight some connections between
the problem of nonlinear smoothing and optimal control of the Liouville
equation. The latter has been an active area of recent research interest owing
to work in mean-field games and optimal transportation theory. The nonlinear
smoothing problem is considered here for continuous-time Markov processes. The
observation process is modeled as a nonlinear function of a hidden state with
an additive Gaussian measurement noise. A variational formulation is described
based upon the relative entropy formula introduced by Newton and Mitter. The
resulting optimal control problem is formulated on the space of probability
distributions. The Hamilton's equation of the optimal control are related to
the Zakai equation of nonlinear smoothing via the log transformation. The
overall procedure is shown to generalize the classical Mortensen's minimum
energy estimator for the linear Gaussian problem.Comment: 7 pages, 0 figures, under peer reviewin
Data-driven modelling of biological multi-scale processes
Biological processes involve a variety of spatial and temporal scales. A
holistic understanding of many biological processes therefore requires
multi-scale models which capture the relevant properties on all these scales.
In this manuscript we review mathematical modelling approaches used to describe
the individual spatial scales and how they are integrated into holistic models.
We discuss the relation between spatial and temporal scales and the implication
of that on multi-scale modelling. Based upon this overview over
state-of-the-art modelling approaches, we formulate key challenges in
mathematical and computational modelling of biological multi-scale and
multi-physics processes. In particular, we considered the availability of
analysis tools for multi-scale models and model-based multi-scale data
integration. We provide a compact review of methods for model-based data
integration and model-based hypothesis testing. Furthermore, novel approaches
and recent trends are discussed, including computation time reduction using
reduced order and surrogate models, which contribute to the solution of
inference problems. We conclude the manuscript by providing a few ideas for the
development of tailored multi-scale inference methods.Comment: This manuscript will appear in the Journal of Coupled Systems and
Multiscale Dynamics (American Scientific Publishers
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