Papers › A new method for parameter estimation in probabilistic models: Minimum probability flow

A new method for parameter estimation in probabilistic models: Minimum probability flow

17 Jul 2020arXiv:2007.09240archive 2025-07-28

Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, Peter Battaglino, Michael R. DeWeese

Fitting probabilistic models to data is often difficult, due to the general intractability of the partition function. We propose a new parameter fitting method, Minimum Probability Flow (MPF), which is applicable to any parametric model. We demonstrate parameter estimation using MPF in two cases: a continuous state space model, and an Ising spin glass. In the latter case it outperforms current techniques by at least an order of magnitude in convergence time with lower error in the recovered coupling parameters.

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