\dm_csml_event_details UCL ELLIS

Variational Inference in Gaussian Process Models


Speaker

James Hensman

Affiliation

Lancaster University

Date

Friday, 04 March 2016

Time

13:00-14:00

Location

Zoom

Link

Roberts G08 Sir David Davies LT (TBC)

Event series

DeepMind/ELLIS CSML Seminar Series

Abstract

Gaussian process models are widely used in statistics and machine learning. There are three key challenges to inference that might be tackled using variational methods: inference over the latent function values when the likelihood is non-Gaussian; scaling the computation to large datasets; inference over the kernel-parameters. I’ll show how the variational framework can be used to tackle all of these. In particular, I’ll share recent insights which allow us to interpret the approximation ain an elegant and straightforward way, using variational Bayes over stochastic processes. Finally, I’ll outline how this technology can be used to help tackle contemporary problems in biostatistics.

Speaker website

Biography