Seminar Details

Seminar Details

Friday

Apr 11

3:30 pm

## Nonparametric Bayesian Classification

### Marc Coram

Seminar

University of Chicago

A Bayesian approach to the classification problem is proposed in which random partitions play a central role. It is argued that the partitioning approach has the capacity to take advantage of a variety of large-scale spatial structures, if they are present in the unknown regression function $f_0$. An idealized one-dimensional problem is considered in detail. The proposed nonparametric prior is found to provide a consistent estimate of the regression function in the $\L^p$ topology, for any $1 \leq p < \infty$, and for arbitrary measurable $f_0:[0,1] \rightarrow [0,1]$. An MCMC implementation is outlined and simulation experiments are conducted to show that the proposed estimate compares favorably with CART and bagged CART estimates. A generalized prior is discussed which employs a random Voronoi partition of the covariate-space. The resulting estimate displays promise on a two-dimensional problem, and extends with a minimum of additional computational effort to arbitrary metric spaces.