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Related papers: Objective Priors in the Empirical Bayes Framework

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Using observation data to estimate unknown parameters in computational models is broadly important. This task is often challenging because solutions are non-unique due to the complexity of the model and limited observation data. However,…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-12-18 Jiacheng Wu , Jian-Xun Wang , Shawn C. Shadden

Optimization is widely used in statistics, and often efficiently delivers point estimates on useful spaces involving structural constraints or combinatorial structure. To quantify uncertainty, Gibbs posterior exponentiates the negative loss…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-07-23 Cheng Zeng , Eleni Dilma , Jason Xu , Leo L Duan

Bayesian models provide recursive inference naturally because they can formally reconcile new data and existing scientific information. However, popular use of Bayesian methods often avoids priors that are based on exact posterior…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-04-29 Mevin B. Hooten , Devin S. Johnson , Brian M. Brost

We consider the classical problems of estimating the mean of an $n$-dimensional normally (with identity covariance matrix) or Poisson distributed vector under the squared loss. In a Bayesian setting the optimal estimator is given by the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-09-13 Yury Polyanskiy , Yihong Wu

Bayesian learning is built on an assumption that the model space contains a true reflection of the data generating mechanism. This assumption is problematic, particularly in complex data environments. Here we present a Bayesian…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-11-05 S. P. Lyddon , S. G. Walker , C. C. Holmes

Predictive uncertainty quantification is crucial for reliable decision-making in various applied domains. Bayesian neural networks offer a powerful framework for this task. However, defining meaningful priors and ensuring computational…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-30 Yijia Liu , Xiao Wang

In many real world problems, optimization decisions have to be made with limited information. The decision maker may have no a priori or posteriori data about the often nonconvex objective function except from on a limited number of points…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-11-10 Tansu Alpcan

The problem of assigning probability distributions which objectively reflect the prior information available about experiments is one of the major stumbling blocks in the use of Bayesian methods of data analysis. In this paper the method of…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2009-11-10 Ariel Caticha , Roland Preuss

We consider the problem of estimating the means $\mu_i$ of $n$ random variables $Y_i \sim N(\mu_i,1)$, $i=1,\ldots ,n$. Assuming some structure on the $\mu$ process, e.g., a state space model, one may use a summary statistics for the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2014-06-05 E. Greenshtein , A. Mansura , Y. Ritov

We review common situations in Bayesian latent variable models where the prior distribution that a researcher specifies differs from the prior distribution used during estimation. These situations can arise from the positive definite…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-11-19 Edgar C. Merkle , Oludare Ariyo , Sonja D. Winter , Mauricio Garnier-Villarreal

In the statistical problem of denoising, Bayes and empirical Bayes methods can "overshrink" their output relative to the latent variables of interest. This work is focused on constrained denoising problems which mitigate such phenomena. At…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-07-01 Adam Quinn Jaffe , Nikolaos Ignatiadis , Bodhisattva Sen

For in vivo research experiments with small sample sizes and available historical data, we propose a sequential Bayesian method for the Behrens-Fisher problem. We consider it as a model choice question with two models in competition: one…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-11-22 Antoine Barbieri , Jean-Michel Marin , Karine Florin

Bayes' rule has enabled innumerable powerful algorithms of statistical signal processing and statistical machine learning. However, when model misspecifications exist in prior and/or data distributions, the direct application of Bayes' rule…

Signal Processing · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-02-13 Shixiong Wang

Empirical Bayes (EB) improves the accuracy of simultaneous inference "by learning from the experience of others" (Efron, 2012). Classical EB theory focuses on latent variables that are iid draws from a fitted prior (Efron, 2019). Modern…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-12-24 Bohan Wu , Eli N. Weinstein , David M. Blei

In Generalised Bayesian Inference (GBI), the learning rate and hyperparameters of the loss must be estimated. These inference-hyperparameters can't be estimated jointly with the other parameters, from the data, by giving them a prior.…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-18 Jeong Eun Lee , Sitong Liu , Geoff K. Nicholls

Bayesian predictive inference analyzes a dataset to make predictions about new observations. When a model does not match the data, predictive accuracy suffers. We develop population empirical Bayes (POP-EB), a hierarchical framework that…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-06-10 Alp Kucukelbir , David M. Blei

Bayesian hierarchical models are frequently used in practical data analysis contexts. One interpretation of these models is that they provide an indirect way of assigning a prior for unknown parameters, through the introduction of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-01 Brendon J. Brewer

Observational astrophysics consists of making inferences about the Universe by comparing data and models. The credible intervals placed on model parameters are often as important as the maximum a posteriori probability values, as the…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2021-12-15 Will J. Percival , Oliver Friedrich , Elena Sellentin , Alan Heavens

Inference from limited data requires a notion of measure on parameter space, most explicit in the Bayesian framework as a prior. Here we demonstrate that Jeffreys prior, the best-known uninformative choice, introduces enormous bias when…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2023-04-03 Michael C. Abbott , Benjamin B. Machta

Full Bayesian posteriors are rarely analytically tractable, which is why real-world Bayesian inference heavily relies on approximate techniques. Approximations generally differ from the true posterior and require diagnostic tools to assess…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-03-08 Luca Rendsburg , Agustinus Kristiadi , Philipp Hennig , Ulrike von Luxburg