Algorithms for Inference

4-0-8 units · Graduate

Introduction to computational aspects of statistical inference via probabilistic graphical models. Directed and undirected graphical models, and factor graphs, over discrete and Gaussian distributions; hidden Markov models, linear dynamical systems. Sum-product and junction tree algorithms; forward-backward algorithm, Kalman filtering and smoothing. Min-sum and Viterbi algorithms. Variational methods, mean-field theory, and loopy belief propagation. Sampling methods; Glauber dynamics and mixing time analysis. Parameter structure learning for graphical models; Baum-Welch and Chow-Liu algorithms. Selected topics such as causal inference, particle filtering, restricted Boltzmann machines, and graph neural networks.