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EPSRC Reference: GR/R22322/01
Title: Approximate Approaches To Likelihood and Bayesian Statistical Inference In Incomplete-Data Problems
Principal Investigator: Titterington, Professor DM
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Statistics
Organisation: University of Glasgow
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 15 March 2002 Ends: 14 March 2005 Value (£): 143,463
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Statistics & Appl. Probability
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Information Technologies No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
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Summary on Grant Application Form
Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference are nontrivial in incomplete data problems, for computational reasons. Often even the EM algorithum is difficult, and approximations to the E-step are needed to make the procedure tractable. For instance, a complicated E-step can be approximated using independence models (Mean-field approximations). Independence models are also the key to providing both lower bounds to the loglikelihood of interest, thereby affording a more direct source of approximate inference, and so-called variational approximations to Bayesian posterior distributions. Although these mehods have been used quite widely in the recent neural-computing literature, much remains to be discovered about their properties in general. This project will investigate these issues, for both these independence-model approximations and refinements thereof that remain fairly tractable but do reflect some of the correlations that the independence models neglect. A deliberate effort will be made to inform th emainstream statistical community about these types of approximation, reported so far almost exclusively in other literatures.
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Organisation Website: http://www.gla.ac.uk