Related papers: Two new Markov order estimators
Markov chains are a natural and well understood tool for describing one-dimensional patterns in time or space. We show how to infer $k$-th order Markov chains, for arbitrary $k$, from finite data by applying Bayesian methods to both…
We investigate a class of estimators of the Markov order for stationary ergodic processes which form a slight modification of the constructions by Merhav, Gutman, and Ziv in 1989 as well as by Ryabko, Astola, and Malyutov in 2006 and 2016.…
We use the $f-divergence$ also called relative entropy as a measure of diversity between probability densities and review its basic properties. In the sequence we define a few objects which capture relevant information from the sample of a…
Stationary ergodic processes with finite alphabets are estimated by finite memory processes from a sample, an n-length realization of the process, where the memory depth of the estimator process is also estimated from the sample using…
The Markov assumption in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is fundamental in reinforcement learning, influencing both theoretical research and practical applications. Existing methods that rely on the Bellman equation benefit tremendously…
The main goal of this paper is to develop an estimate for the entropy of random stationary ergodic symbolic sequences with elements belonging to a finite alphabet. We present here the detailed analytical study of the entropy for the…
We introduce a general method for the study of memory in symbolic sequences based on higher-order Markov analysis. The Markov process that best represents a sequence is expressed as a mixture of matrices of minimal orders, enabling the…
Predictability of behavior has emerged an an important characteristic in many fields including biology, medicine, and marketing. Behavior can be recorded as a sequence of actions performed by an individual over a given time period. This…
Entropy estimation is a fundamental problem in information theory that has applications in various fields, including physics, biology, and computer science. Estimating the entropy of discrete sequences can be challenging due to limited data…
We describe estimators $\chi_n(X_0,X_1,...,X_n)$, which when applied to an unknown stationary process taking values from a countable alphabet ${\cal X}$, converge almost surely to $k$ in case the process is a $k$-th order Markov chain and…
The main goal of the paper is to develop an estimate for the conditional probability function of random stationary ergodic symbolic sequences with elements belonging to a finite alphabet. We elaborate a decomposition procedure for the…
We investigate the memory properties of discrete sequences built upon a finite number of states. We find that the block entropy can reliably determine the memory for systems modeled as Markov chains of arbitrary finite order. Further, we…
We consider two important time scales---the Markov and cryptic orders---that monitor how an observer synchronizes to a finitary stochastic process. We show how to compute these orders exactly and that they are most efficiently calculated…
We present a new Markov chain Monte Carlo method for estimating posterior probabilities of structural features in Bayesian networks. The method draws samples from the posterior distribution of partial orders on the nodes; for each sampled…
The goal of this paper is to develop an estimate for the entropy of random long-range correlated symbolic sequences with elements belonging to a finite alphabet. As a plausible model, we use the high-order additive stationary ergodic Markov…
Higher-order Markov chains play a very important role in many fields, ranging from multilinear PageRank to financial modeling. In this paper, we propose three accelerated higher-order power methods for computing the limiting probability…
We consider a strictly substochastic matrix or an stochastic matrix with absorbing states. By using quasi-stationary distributions one shows there is a canonical associated stationary Markov chain. Based upon $2-$stringing representation of…
Exact approximations of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are a general emerging class of sampling algorithms. One of the main ideas behind exact approximations consists of replacing intractable quantities required to run standard…
We study the problem of learning the Markov order in categorical sequences that represent paths in a network, i.e. sequences of variable lengths where transitions between states are constrained to a known graph. Such data pose challenges…
We propose a new approach for estimating the finite dimensional transition matrix of a Markov chain using a large number of independent sample paths observed at random times. The sample paths may be observed as few as two times, and the…