2,155 research outputs found
Particle Learning for General Mixtures
This paper develops particle learning (PL) methods for the estimation of general mixture models. The approach is distinguished from alternative particle filtering methods in two major ways. First, each iteration begins by resampling particles according to posterior predictive probability, leading to a more efficient set for propagation. Second, each particle tracks only the "essential state vector" thus leading to reduced dimensional inference. In addition, we describe how the approach will apply to more general mixture models of current interest in the literature; it is hoped that this will inspire a greater number of researchers to adopt sequential Monte Carlo methods for fitting their sophisticated mixture based models. Finally, we show that PL leads to straight forward tools for marginal likelihood calculation and posterior cluster allocation.Business Administratio
Approximate Decentralized Bayesian Inference
This paper presents an approximate method for performing Bayesian inference
in models with conditional independence over a decentralized network of
learning agents. The method first employs variational inference on each
individual learning agent to generate a local approximate posterior, the agents
transmit their local posteriors to other agents in the network, and finally
each agent combines its set of received local posteriors. The key insight in
this work is that, for many Bayesian models, approximate inference schemes
destroy symmetry and dependencies in the model that are crucial to the correct
application of Bayes' rule when combining the local posteriors. The proposed
method addresses this issue by including an additional optimization step in the
combination procedure that accounts for these broken dependencies. Experiments
on synthetic and real data demonstrate that the decentralized method provides
advantages in computational performance and predictive test likelihood over
previous batch and distributed methods.Comment: This paper was presented at UAI 2014. Please use the following BibTeX
citation: @inproceedings{Campbell14_UAI, Author = {Trevor Campbell and
Jonathan P. How}, Title = {Approximate Decentralized Bayesian Inference},
Booktitle = {Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)}, Year = {2014}
Dynamic Clustering via Asymptotics of the Dependent Dirichlet Process Mixture
This paper presents a novel algorithm, based upon the dependent Dirichlet
process mixture model (DDPMM), for clustering batch-sequential data containing
an unknown number of evolving clusters. The algorithm is derived via a
low-variance asymptotic analysis of the Gibbs sampling algorithm for the DDPMM,
and provides a hard clustering with convergence guarantees similar to those of
the k-means algorithm. Empirical results from a synthetic test with moving
Gaussian clusters and a test with real ADS-B aircraft trajectory data
demonstrate that the algorithm requires orders of magnitude less computational
time than contemporary probabilistic and hard clustering algorithms, while
providing higher accuracy on the examined datasets.Comment: This paper is from NIPS 2013. Please use the following BibTeX
citation: @inproceedings{Campbell13_NIPS, Author = {Trevor Campbell and Miao
Liu and Brian Kulis and Jonathan P. How and Lawrence Carin}, Title = {Dynamic
Clustering via Asymptotics of the Dependent Dirichlet Process}, Booktitle =
{Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)}, Year = {2013}
A Bayesian nonparametric approach to modeling market share dynamics
We propose a flexible stochastic framework for modeling the market share
dynamics over time in a multiple markets setting, where firms interact within
and between markets. Firms undergo stochastic idiosyncratic shocks, which
contract their shares, and compete to consolidate their position by acquiring
new ones in both the market where they operate and in new markets. The model
parameters can meaningfully account for phenomena such as barriers to entry and
exit, fixed and sunk costs, costs of expanding to new sectors with different
technologies and competitive advantage among firms. The construction is
obtained in a Bayesian framework by means of a collection of nonparametric
hierarchical mixtures, which induce the dependence between markets and provide
a generalization of the Blackwell-MacQueen P\'{o}lya urn scheme, which in turn
is used to generate a partially exchangeable dynamical particle system. A
Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm is provided for simulating trajectories of
the system, by means of which we perform a simulation study for transitions to
different economic regimes. Moreover, it is shown that the infinite-dimensional
properties of the system, when appropriately transformed and rescaled, are
those of a collection of interacting Fleming-Viot diffusions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/11-BEJ392 the Bernoulli
(http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical
Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm
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