Hi! So, I’m trying out something new. It’s no longer summer, which means I have much less time to follow my own research paths (because class). But this quarter, I want to “live blog” my insights as I go along. The class is:

• Class Site: http://j.ee.washington.edu/~bilmes/classes/ee512a_fall_2014/
• Video Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPnLF7oUh4p-m575fZcUxg

Lecture Posts

Exact Inference On Approximate Problem:

• Chordal Graphs [Graphic]. Trees aren’t the only thing supporting perfect elimination orderings (PEOs). An infographic describing the chain of mathematical proofs which ultimately establish chordal graphs as supporting PEOs via the concept of minimal separators.
• Family vs. Universe. Graphical models conjoin graphs with a set of rules, which sample & thereby constrain the entire universe U (solution-space). The constrained solution-space is called a family F.
• Designer Families. A concrete walkthrough of family design,  including which heuristics are important to bear in mind.
• Murderous Cliques. How cliques give us insight into making good variable-elimination-ordering choices.
• Murderous Messages.  Graphs with no cycles (trees) allow us to re-interpret variable elimination epistemically, as a form of message passing.
• Tree, Generalized. Introduces k-trees, and discusses the relationship between trees, k-trees, and chordal graphs.

Approximate Inference on Exact Problems:

• Exponential Families [Graphic]. From conjugate duality to variational inference.

Final Project Posts

• Goodman: Semiring Parsing.
• The Semiring Lifting Trick [Pdf].
• Semirings As Generative Theoretical Devices [Video]