The posterior probability is a type of conditional probability that results from updating the prior probability with information summarized by the likelihood via an application of Bayes' rule. From an epistemological perspective, the posterior probability contains everything there is to know about an uncertain proposition (such as a scientific hypothesis, or parameter values), given prior knowledge and a mathematical model describing the observations available at a particular time. After the arrival of new information, the current posterior probability may serve as the prior in another round of Bayesian updating.
In the context of Bayesian statistics, the posterior probability distribution usually describes the epistemic uncertainty about statistical parameters conditional on a collection of observed data. From a given posterior distribution, various point and interval estimates can be derived, such as the maximum a posteriori (MAP) or the highest posterior density interval (HPDI). But while conceptually simple, the posterior distribution is generally not tractable and therefore needs to be either analytically or numerically approximated.
In variational Bayesian methods, the posterior probability is the probability of the parameters given the evidence , and is denoted .
It contrasts with the likelihood function, which is the probability of the evidence given the parameters: .
The two are related as follows:
Given a prior belief that a probability distribution function is and that the observations have a likelihood , then the posterior probability is defined as
where is the normalizing constant and is calculated as
for continuous ,
or by summing
over all possible values of for discrete .
The posterior probability is therefore proportional to the product Likelihood · Prior probability.
Suppose there is a school with 60% boys and 40% girls as students. The girls wear trousers or skirts in equal numbers; all boys wear trousers. An observer sees a (random) student from a distance; all the observer can see is that this student is wearing trousers.
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Le cours présente les notions de base de la théorie des probabilités et de l'inférence statistique. L'accent est mis sur les concepts principaux ainsi que les méthodes les plus utilisées.
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In statistics, interval estimation is the use of sample data to estimate an interval of possible values of a parameter of interest. This is in contrast to point estimation, which gives a single value. The most prevalent forms of interval estimation are confidence intervals (a frequentist method) and credible intervals (a Bayesian method); less common forms include likelihood intervals and fiducial intervals.
La statistique bayésienne est une approche statistique fondée sur l'inférence bayésienne, où la probabilité exprime un degré de croyance en un événement. Le degré initial de croyance peut être basé sur des connaissances a priori, telles que les résultats d'expériences antérieures, ou sur des croyances personnelles concernant l'événement. La perspective bayésienne diffère d'un certain nombre d'autres interprétations de la probabilité, comme l'interprétation fréquentiste qui considère la probabilité comme la limite de la fréquence relative d'un événement après de nombreux essais.
Dans le théorème de Bayes, la probabilité a priori (ou prior) désigne une probabilité se fondant sur des données ou connaissances antérieures à une observation. Elle s'oppose à la probabilité a posteriori (ou posterior) correspondante qui s'appuie sur les connaissances postérieures à cette observation. Le théorème de Bayes s'énonce de la manière suivante : si . désigne ici la probabilité a priori de , tandis que désigne la probabilité a posteriori, c'est-à-dire la probabilité conditionnelle de sachant .
Explore les modèles génératifs, la régression logistique et la distribution gaussienne pour approximer les probabilités postérieures et optimiser les performances du modèle.
We propose a novel approach to evaluating the ionic Seebeck coefficient in electrolytes from relatively short equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, based on the Green-Kubo theory of linear response and Bayesian regression analysis. By exploiting the ...
Amer Chemical Soc2024
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In this paper, we study sampling from a posterior derived from a neural network. We propose a new probabilistic model consisting of adding noise at every pre- and post-activation in the network, arguing that the resulting posterior can be sampled using an ...
Bristol2024
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We consider fluid flows, governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, subject to a steady symmetry-breaking bifurcation and forced by a weak noise acting on a slow timescale. By generalizing the multiple-scale weakly nonlinear expansion technique employed in t ...