Bayesian analysis is definitely different from the classic statistical methods. Although, both of them use subjective ideas, it is used in the selection of models in the classic statistical methods, rather than as an explicit part in Bayesian models, which allows the combination of subjective ideas with the data collected, update the prior information and improve inferences. Drastic growth of Bayesian applications indicates it becomes more and more popular, because the advent of computational methods (e.g., MCMC) renders sophisticated analysis. In Bayesian framework, the flexibility and generality allows it to cope with very complex problems.
One big obstacle in earlier Bayesian analysis is how to sample from the usually complex posterior distribution. With modern techniques and fast-developed computation capacity, we now have tools to solve this problem.
We discuss Acceptance-Rejection sampling, importance sampling and then the MCMC methods. Metropolis-Hasting algorithm, as a very versatile, efficient and powerful simulation technique to construct a Markov Chain, borrows the idea from the well-known acceptance-rejection sampling to generate candidates that are either accepted or rejected, but then retains the current values when rejection takes place (1). A special case of Metropolis-Hasting algorithm is Gibbs Sampler. When dealing with high dimensional problems, Gibbs Sampler doesn’t require a decent proposal distribution. It generates the Markov Chain through univariate conditional probability distribution, which greatly simplifies problems. We illustrate the use of those approaches with examples (with R codes) to provide a thorough review.
Those basic methods have variants to deal with different situations. And they are building blocks for more advanced problems.
This report is not a tutorial for statistics or the software R. The author assumes that readers are familiar with basic statistical concepts and common R statements. If needed, a detailed instruction of R programming can be found in the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN): http://cran.R-project.org / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-611 |
| Date | 27 August 2010 |
| Creators | Sun, Wenwen |
| Contributors | Sager, Thomas W. |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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