A Class of Conjugate Priors for Multinomial Probit Models which Includes the Multivariate Normal One

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2007.06944v2
• Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 11:56:53 GMT
• Title: A Class of Conjugate Priors for Multinomial Probit Models which Includes the Multivariate Normal One
• Authors: Augusto Fasano and Daniele Durante
• Abstract summary: We show that the entire class of unified skew-normal (SUN) distributions is conjugate to several multinomial probit models. We improve upon state-of-the-art solutions for posterior inference and classification.
• Score: 0.3553493344868413
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Multinomial probit models are routinely-implemented representations for learning how the class probabilities of categorical response data change with p observed predictors. Although several frequentist methods have been developed for estimation, inference and classification within such a class of models, Bayesian inference is still lagging behind. This is due to the apparent absence of a tractable class of conjugate priors, that may facilitate posterior inference on the multinomial probit coefficients. Such an issue has motivated increasing efforts toward the development of effective Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, but state-of-the-art solutions still face severe computational bottlenecks, especially in high dimensions. In this article, we show that the entire class of unified skew-normal (SUN) distributions is conjugate to several multinomial probit models. Leveraging this result and the SUN properties, we improve upon state-of-the-art solutions for posterior inference and classification both in terms of closed-form results for several functionals of interest, and also by developing novel computational methods relying either on independent and identically distributed samples from the exact posterior or on scalable and accurate variational approximations based on blocked partially-factorized representations. As illustrated in simulations and in a gastrointestinal lesions application, the magnitude of the improvements relative to current methods is particularly evident, in practice, when the focus is on high-dimensional studies.

Related papers

• Structured Radial Basis Function Network: Modelling Diversity for Multiple Hypotheses Prediction [51.82628081279621]
  Multi-modal regression is important in forecasting nonstationary processes or with a complex mixture of distributions. A Structured Radial Basis Function Network is presented as an ensemble of multiple hypotheses predictors for regression problems. It is proved that this structured model can efficiently interpolate this tessellation and approximate the multiple hypotheses target distribution.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-09-02T01:27:53Z)
• Bayesian Inference for the Multinomial Probit Model under Gaussian Prior Distribution [0.0]
  Multinomial probit (mnp) models are fundamental and widely-applied regression models for categorical data. Fasano and Durante (2022) proved that the class of unified skew-normal distributions is conjugate to several mnp sampling models. We adapt the results for a popular special case: the discrete-choice mnp model under zero mean and independent Gaussian priors.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-06-01T19:10:41Z)
• Posterior and Computational Uncertainty in Gaussian Processes [52.26904059556759]
  Gaussian processes scale prohibitively with the size of the dataset. Many approximation methods have been developed, which inevitably introduce approximation error. This additional source of uncertainty, due to limited computation, is entirely ignored when using the approximate posterior. We develop a new class of methods that provides consistent estimation of the combined uncertainty arising from both the finite number of data observed and the finite amount of computation expended.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-05-30T22:16:25Z)
• Optimal regularizations for data generation with probabilistic graphical models [0.0]
  Empirically, well-chosen regularization schemes dramatically improve the quality of the inferred models. We consider the particular case of L 2 and L 1 regularizations in the Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) inference of generative pairwise graphical models.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-12-02T14:45:16Z)
• Sampling from Arbitrary Functions via PSD Models [55.41644538483948]
  We take a two-step approach by first modeling the probability distribution and then sampling from that model. We show that these models can approximate a large class of densities concisely using few evaluations, and present a simple algorithm to effectively sample from these models.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-10-20T12:25:22Z)
• Scalable Cross Validation Losses for Gaussian Process Models [22.204619587725208]
  We use Polya-Gamma auxiliary variables and variational inference to accommodate binary and multi-class classification. We find that our method offers fast training and excellent predictive performance.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-05-24T21:01:47Z)
• Improving the Reconstruction of Disentangled Representation Learners via Multi-Stage Modeling [54.94763543386523]
  Current autoencoder-based disentangled representation learning methods achieve disentanglement by penalizing the ( aggregate) posterior to encourage statistical independence of the latent factors. We present a novel multi-stage modeling approach where the disentangled factors are first learned using a penalty-based disentangled representation learning method. Then, the low-quality reconstruction is improved with another deep generative model that is trained to model the missing correlated latent variables.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-10-25T18:51:15Z)
• Good Classifiers are Abundant in the Interpolating Regime [64.72044662855612]
  We develop a methodology to compute precisely the full distribution of test errors among interpolating classifiers. We find that test errors tend to concentrate around a small typical value $varepsilon*$, which deviates substantially from the test error of worst-case interpolating model. Our results show that the usual style of analysis in statistical learning theory may not be fine-grained enough to capture the good generalization performance observed in practice.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-06-22T21:12:31Z)
• Stacking for Non-mixing Bayesian Computations: The Curse and Blessing of Multimodal Posteriors [8.11978827493967]
  We propose an approach using parallel runs of MCMC, variational, or mode-based inference to hit as many modes as possible. We present theoretical consistency with an example where the stacked inference process approximates the true data. We demonstrate practical implementation in several model families.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-06-22T15:26:59Z)
• Efficiently Sampling Functions from Gaussian Process Posteriors [76.94808614373609]
  We propose an easy-to-use and general-purpose approach for fast posterior sampling. We demonstrate how decoupled sample paths accurately represent Gaussian process posteriors at a fraction of the usual cost.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-02-21T14:03:16Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.