Principled model selection for stochastic dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gerardos, Andonis, Ronceray, Pierre
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Gerardos, Andonis
Ronceray, Pierre
author_facet Gerardos, Andonis
Ronceray, Pierre
contents Complex dynamical systems, from macromolecules to ecosystems, are often modeled by stochastic differential equations. To learn such models from data, a common approach involves sparse selection among a large function library. However, we show that overfitting arises not just from individual model complexity, but also from the combinatorial growth of possible models. To address this, we introduce Parsimonious Stochastic Inference (PASTIS), a principled method combining likelihood-estimation statistics with extreme value theory to suppress superfluous parameters. PASTIS outperforms existing methods and reliably identifies minimal models, even with low sampling rates or measurement error. It extends to stochastic partial differential equations, and applies to ecological networks and reaction-diffusion dynamics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_10339
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Principled model selection for stochastic dynamics
Gerardos, Andonis
Ronceray, Pierre
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Machine Learning
Complex dynamical systems, from macromolecules to ecosystems, are often modeled by stochastic differential equations. To learn such models from data, a common approach involves sparse selection among a large function library. However, we show that overfitting arises not just from individual model complexity, but also from the combinatorial growth of possible models. To address this, we introduce Parsimonious Stochastic Inference (PASTIS), a principled method combining likelihood-estimation statistics with extreme value theory to suppress superfluous parameters. PASTIS outperforms existing methods and reliably identifies minimal models, even with low sampling rates or measurement error. It extends to stochastic partial differential equations, and applies to ecological networks and reaction-diffusion dynamics.
title Principled model selection for stochastic dynamics
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.10339