Related papers: Optimal Prior Pooling from Expert Opinions
Many applications, including natural language processing, sensor networks, collaborative filtering, and federated learning, call for estimating discrete distributions from data collected in batches, some of which may be untrustworthy,…
We present novel bounds for estimating discrete probability distributions under the $\ell_\infty$ norm. These are nearly optimal in various precise senses, including a kind of instance-optimality. Our data-dependent convergence guarantees…
The increasing reliance on digital platforms shapes how individuals understand the world, as recommendation systems direct users toward content "similar" to their existing preferences. While this process simplifies information retrieval,…
There are some shreds of evidence that social opinion polarization leads to the breakup of the relationship, some in the scale of small communities, but others can divide large organizations or even a nation. The legacy methodology to…
The choice of approximate posterior distribution is one of the core problems in variational inference. Most applications of variational inference employ simple families of posterior approximations in order to allow for efficient inference,…
We propose an ODE-based derivation for a generalized class of opinion formation models either for single and multiple species (followers, leaders, trolls). The approach is purely deterministic and the evolution of the single opinion is…
Priors are essential for reconstructing images from noisy and/or incomplete measurements. The choice of the prior determines both the quality and uncertainty of recovered images. We propose turning score-based diffusion models into…
Predicting the value of a function $f$ at a new point given its values at old points is an ubiquitous scientific endeavor, somewhat less developed when $f$ produces multiple values that depend on one another, e.g. when it outputs…
Data pooling offers various advantages, such as increasing the sample size, improving generalization, reducing sampling bias, and addressing data sparsity and quality, but it is not straightforward and may even be counterproductive.…
Multiple Instance Learning is a form of weakly supervised learning in which the data is arranged in sets of instances called bags with one label assigned per bag. The bag level class prediction is derived from the multiple instances through…
When complex Bayesian models exhibit implausible behaviour, one solution is to assemble available information into an informative prior. Challenges arise as prior information is often only available for the observable quantity, or some…
Mutual information between particle positions before and after mixing provides a universal assumption-free measure of mixing efficiency at low Reynolds number which accounts for the kinematic reversibility of the Stokes equation. For a…
The widespread emergence of opinion polarization is often attributed to the rise of social media and the internet, which can promote selective exposure and the formation of echo chambers. However, experimental evidence shows that exposure…
We present a new method for probabilistic elicitation of expert knowledge using binary responses of human experts assessing simulated data from a statistical model, where the parameters are subject to uncertainty. The binary responses…
Are we as a society getting more polarized, and if so, why? We try to answer this question through a model of opinion formation. Empirical studies have shown that homophily results in polarization. However, we show that DeGroot's well-known…
Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that adversely affects management decisions, and mathematical modelling is an aid to its detailed understanding. Bias in opinion update about the value of a parameter is modelled here assuming that…
The construction of objective priors is, at best, challenging for multidimensional parameter spaces. A common practice is to assume independence and set up the joint prior as the product of marginal distributions obtained via "standard"…
In sociological research, the study of macro processes, such as opinion polarization, faces a fundamental problem, the so-called micro-macro problem. To overcome this problem, we combine empirical experimental research on biased argument…
This paper introduces a model for opinion dynamics, where at each time step, randomly selected agents see their opinions - modeled as scalars in [0,1] - evolve depending on a local interaction function. In the classical Bounded Confidence…
Diffusion probabilistic models excel at sampling new images from learned distributions. Originally motivated by drift-diffusion concepts from physics, they apply image perturbations such as noise and blur in a forward process that results…