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10 - Bayesian Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

James Burridge
Affiliation:
University of Portsmouth
Nick Tosh
Affiliation:
University of Galway
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Summary

This chapter introduces key concepts and methods in Bayesian statistical modelling. The posterior predictive distribution captures both epistemic uncertainty in model parameters and aleatory uncertainty in future outcomes. A Bayesian p-value gives the probability that a statistic computed from data output by a given model will be more extreme than the value of the same statistic computed from observed data. Bayesian p-values close to 0 or 1 suggest the model may be inadequate. Markov chain Monte Carlo is a general-purpose tool for sampling from complex, unnormalised distributions. It produces dependent samples, so the effective sample size is usually smaller than the number of iterations. Informative priors are useful when data leave large uncertainties in parameter values. Empirical Bayes combines information across related datasets by estimating a distribution over parameters using frequentist methods. Hierarchical modelling provides a unified Bayesian framework for handling multiple related datasets, capturing group structure via a hierarchical graph.

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  • Bayesian Methods
  • James Burridge, University of Portsmouth, Nick Tosh, University of Galway
  • Book: Inference in Statistical Modelling and Machine Learning
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009630696.011
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  • Bayesian Methods
  • James Burridge, University of Portsmouth, Nick Tosh, University of Galway
  • Book: Inference in Statistical Modelling and Machine Learning
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009630696.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Bayesian Methods
  • James Burridge, University of Portsmouth, Nick Tosh, University of Galway
  • Book: Inference in Statistical Modelling and Machine Learning
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009630696.011
Available formats
×