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Main Authors: Natarajan, Abhinav, Boom, Willem van den, Odang, Kristoforus Bryant, De Iorio, Maria
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.04324
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author Natarajan, Abhinav
Boom, Willem van den
Odang, Kristoforus Bryant
De Iorio, Maria
author_facet Natarajan, Abhinav
Boom, Willem van den
Odang, Kristoforus Bryant
De Iorio, Maria
contents Gaussian graphical models are useful tools for conditional independence structure inference of multivariate random variables. Unfortunately, Bayesian inference of latent graph structures is challenging due to exponential growth of $\mathcal{G}_n$, the set of all graphs in $n$ vertices. One approach that has been proposed to tackle this problem is to limit search to subsets of $\mathcal{G}_n$. In this paper, we study subsets that are vector subspaces with the cycle space $\mathcal{C}_n$ as main example. We propose a novel prior on $\mathcal{C}_n$ based on linear combinations of cycle basis elements and present its theoretical properties. Using this prior, we implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, and show that (i) posterior edge inclusion estimates computed with our technique are comparable to estimates from the standard technique despite searching a smaller graph space, and (ii) the vector space perspective enables straightforward implementation of MCMC algorithms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2205_04324
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On a wider class of prior distributions for graphical models
Natarajan, Abhinav
Boom, Willem van den
Odang, Kristoforus Bryant
De Iorio, Maria
Methodology
62H22 (Primary) 05C80, 05C90 (Secondary)
Gaussian graphical models are useful tools for conditional independence structure inference of multivariate random variables. Unfortunately, Bayesian inference of latent graph structures is challenging due to exponential growth of $\mathcal{G}_n$, the set of all graphs in $n$ vertices. One approach that has been proposed to tackle this problem is to limit search to subsets of $\mathcal{G}_n$. In this paper, we study subsets that are vector subspaces with the cycle space $\mathcal{C}_n$ as main example. We propose a novel prior on $\mathcal{C}_n$ based on linear combinations of cycle basis elements and present its theoretical properties. Using this prior, we implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, and show that (i) posterior edge inclusion estimates computed with our technique are comparable to estimates from the standard technique despite searching a smaller graph space, and (ii) the vector space perspective enables straightforward implementation of MCMC algorithms.
title On a wider class of prior distributions for graphical models
topic Methodology
62H22 (Primary) 05C80, 05C90 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.04324