arXiv subjects

Nathanael Ackerman

Publications and source records attributed to Nathanael Ackerman.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Priors on exchangeable directed graphs

Directed graphs occur throughout statistical modeling of networks, and exchangeability is a natural assumption when the ordering of vertices does not matter. There is a deep structural theory for exchangeable undirected graphs, which extends to the directed case via measurable objects known as digraphons. Using digraphons, we first show how to construct models for exchangeable directed graphs, including special cases such as tournaments, linear orderings, directed acyclic graphs, and partial orderings. We then show how to construct priors on digraphons via the infinite relational digraphon model (di-IRM), a new Bayesian nonparametric block model for exchangeable directed graphs, and demonstrate inference on synthetic data.

math.ST↗

arXiv2016

A classification of orbits admitting a unique invariant measure

We consider the space of countable structures with fixed underlying set in a given countable language. We show that the number of ergodic probability measures on this space that are $S_\infty$-invariant and concentrated on a single isomorphism class must be zero, or one, or continuum. Further, such an isomorphism class admits a unique $S_\infty$-invariant probability measure precisely when the structure is highly homogeneous; by a result of Peter J. Cameron, these are the structures that are interdefinable with one of the five reducts of the rational linear order $(\mathbb{Q}, <)$.

math.LO↗

arXiv2016

Invariant measures concentrated on countable structures

Let L be a countable language. We say that a countable infinite L-structure M admits an invariant measure when there is a probability measure on the space of L-structures with the same underlying set as M that is invariant under permutations of that set, and that assigns measure one to the isomorphism class of M. We show that M admits an invariant measure if and only if it has trivial definable closure, i.e., the pointwise stabilizer in Aut(M) of an arbitrary finite tuple of M fixes no additional points. When M is a Fraisse limit in a relational language, this amounts to requiring that the age of M have strong amalgamation. Our results give rise to new instances of structures that admit invariant measures and structures that do not.

math.LO↗

arXiv2015

Invariant measures via inverse limits of finite structures

Building on recent results regarding symmetric probabilistic constructions of countable structures, we provide a method for constructing probability measures, concentrated on certain classes of countably infinite structures, that are invariant under all permutations of the underlying set that fix all constants. These measures are constructed from inverse limits of measures on certain finite structures. We use this construction to obtain invariant probability measures concentrated on the classes of countable models of certain first-order theories, including measures that do not assign positive measure to the isomorphism class of any single model. We also characterize those transitive Borel G-spaces admitting a G-invariant probability measure, when G is an arbitrary countable product of symmetric groups on a countable set.

math.LO↗

arXiv2015

An iterative step-function estimator for graphons

Exchangeable graphs arise via a sampling procedure from measurable functions known as graphons. A natural estimation problem is how well we can recover a graphon given a single graph sampled from it. One general framework for estimating a graphon uses step-functions obtained by partitioning the nodes of the graph according to some clustering algorithm. We propose an iterative step-function estimator (ISFE) that, given an initial partition, iteratively clusters nodes based on their edge densities with respect to the previous iteration's partition. We analyze ISFE and demonstrate its performance in comparison with other graphon estimation techniques.

math.ST↗