Refine
Year of publication
- 2016 (17) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (10)
- ZIB-Report (7)
Language
- English (17)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (17)
Keywords
- Bayesian inference (2)
- DS-MLE (2)
- EM algorithm (2)
- Jeffreys prior (2)
- MPLE (2)
- NPMLE (2)
- hyperparameter (2)
- hyperprior (2)
- principle of maximum entropy (2)
- reference prior (2)
Institute
One of the main goals of mathematical modelling in systems biology related to medical applications is to obtain patient-specific parameterisations and model predictions.
In clinical practice, however, the number of available measurements for single patients is usually limited due to time and cost restrictions. This hampers the process of making patient-specific predictions about the outcome of a treatment. On the other hand, data are often available for many patients, in particular if extensive clinical studies have been performed. Using these population data, we propose an iterative algorithm for contructing an informative prior distribution, which then serves as the basis for computing patient-specific posteriors and obtaining individual predictions. We demonsrate the performance of our method by applying it to a low-dimensional parameter estimation problem in a toy model as well as to a high-dimensional ODE model of the human menstrual cycle, which represents a typical example from systems biology modelling.
We utilize the theory of coherent sets to build Markov state models for non- equilibrium molecular dynamical systems. Unlike for systems in equilibrium, “meta- stable” sets in the non-equilibrium case may move as time evolves. We formalize this concept by relying on the theory of coherent sets, based on this we derive finite-time non-stationary Markov state models, and illustrate the concept and its main differences to equilibrium Markov state modeling on simple, one-dimensional examples.
One of the main goals of mathematical modelling in systems medicine related to medical applications is to obtain patient-specific parameterizations and model predictions. In clinical practice, however, the number of available measurements for single patients is usually limited due to time and cost restrictions. This hampers the process of making patient-specific predictions about the outcome of a treatment. On the other hand, data are often available for many patients, in particular if extensive clinical studies have been performed. Therefore, before applying Bayes’ rule separately to the data of each patient (which is typically performed using a non-informative prior), it is meaningful to use empirical Bayes methods in order to construct an informative prior from all available data. We compare the performance of four priors - a non-informative prior and priors chosen by nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation (NPMLE), by maximum penalized lilelihood estimation (MPLE) and by doubly-smoothed maximum likelihood estimation (DS-MLE) - by applying them to a low-dimensional parameter estimation problem in a toy model as well as to a high-dimensional ODE model of the human menstrual cycle, which represents a typical example from systems biology modelling.
Accurate modeling and numerical simulation of reaction kinetics is a topic of steady interest.We consider the spatiotemporal chemical master equation (ST-CME) as a model for stochastic reaction-diffusion systems that exhibit properties of metastability. The space of motion is decomposed into metastable compartments and diffusive motion is approximated by jumps between these compartments. Treating these jumps as first-order reactions, simulation of the resulting stochastic system is possible by the Gillespie method. We present the theory of Markov state models (MSM) as a theoretical foundation of this intuitive approach. By means of Markov state modeling, both the number and shape of compartments and the transition rates between them can be determined. We consider the ST-CME for two reaction-diffusion systems and compare it to more detailed models. Moreover, a rigorous formal justification of the ST-CME by Galerkin projection methods is presented.
The global behavior of dynamical systems can be studied by analyzing the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenfunctions of linear operators associated with the system. Two important operators which are frequently used to gain insight into the system's behavior are the Perron-Frobenius operator and the Koopman operator. Due to the curse of dimensionality, computing the eigenfunctions of high-dimensional systems is in general infeasible. We will propose a tensor-based reformulation of two numerical methods for computing finite-dimensional approximations of the aforementioned infinite-dimensional operators, namely Ulam's method and Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (EDMD). The aim of the tensor formulation is to approximate the eigenfunctions by low-rank tensors, potentially resulting in a significant reduction of the time and memory required to solve the resulting eigenvalue problems, provided that such a low-rank tensor decomposition exists. Typically, not all variables of a high-dimensional dynamical system contribute equally to the system's behavior, often the dynamics can be decomposed into slow and fast processes, which is also reflected in the eigenfunctions. Thus, the weak coupling between different variables might be approximated by low-rank tensor cores. We will illustrate the efficiency of the tensor-based formulation of Ulam's method and EDMD using simple stochastic differential equations.
Information about the behavior of dynamical systems can often be obtained by analyzing the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenfunctions of linear operators associated with a dynamical system. Examples of such operators are the Perron-Frobenius and the Koopman operator. In this paper, we will review different methods that have been developed over the last decades to compute infinite-dimensional approximations of these infinite-dimensional operators - in particular Ulam's method and Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (EDMD) - and highlight the similarities and differences between these approaches. The results will be illustrated using simple stochastic differential equations and molecular dynamics examples.
Real World networks often exhibit a significant number of vertices which are sparsely and irregularly connected to other vertices in the network. For clustering theses networks with a model based algorithm, we propose the Stochastic Block Model with Irrelevant Vertices (SBMIV) for weighted net- works. We propose an original Variational Bayesian Expectation Maximiza- tion inference algorithm for the SBMIV which is an advanced version of our Blockloading algorithm for the Stochastic Block Model. We introduce a model selection criterion for the number of clusters of the SBMIV which is based on the lower variational bound of the model likelihood. We propose a fully Bayesian inference process, based on plausible informative priors, which is independent of other algorithms for preprocessing start values for the cluster assignment of vertices. Our inference methods allow for a multi level identification of irrelevant vertices which are hard to cluster reliably ac- cording to the SBM. We demonstrate that our methods improve on the normal Stochastic Block model by applying it to to Earthquake Networks which are an example of networks with a large number of sparsely and irregularly con- nected vertices.