Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
415629 Computational Statistics & Data Analysis 2007 16 Pages PDF
Abstract

Variational methods, which have become popular in the neural computing/machine learning literature, are applied to the Bayesian analysis of mixtures of Gaussian distributions. It is also shown how the deviance information criterion, (DIC), can be extended to these types of model by exploiting the use of variational approximations. The use of variational methods for model selection and the calculation of a DIC are illustrated with real and simulated data. The variational approach allows the simultaneous estimation of the component parameters and the model complexity. It is found that initial selection of a large number of components results in superfluous components being eliminated as the method converges to a solution. This corresponds to an automatic choice of model complexity. The appropriateness of this is reflected in the DIC values.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Computational Theory and Mathematics
Authors
, ,