An estimation of distribution algorithm with adaptive Gibbs sampling for unconstrained global optimization

In this paper is proposed a new heuristic approach belonging to the field of evolutionary Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs). EDAs builds a probability model and a set of solutions is sampled from the model which characterizes the distribution of such solutions. The main framework of the proposed method is an estimation of distribution algorithm, in which an adaptive Gibbs sampling is used to generate new promising solutions and, in combination with a local search strategy, it improves the individual solutions produced in each iteration. The Estimation of Distribution Algorithm with Adaptive Gibbs Sampling we are proposing in this paper is called AGEDA. We experimentally evaluate and compare this algorithm against two deterministic procedures and several stochastic methods in three well known test problems for unconstrained global optimization. It is empirically shown that our heuristic is robust in problems that involve three central aspects that mainly determine the difficulty of global optimization problems, namely high-dimensionality, multi-modality and non-smoothness.

Bayesian Inference Based on Stationary Fokker-Planck Sampling

A novel formalism for Bayesian learning in the context of complex inference models is proposed. The method is based on the use of the Stationary Fokker--Planck (SFP) approach to sample from the posterior density. Stationary Fokker--Planck sampling generalizes the Gibbs sampler algorithm for arbitrary and unknown conditional densities. By the SFP procedure approximate analytical expressions for the conditionals and marginals of the posterior can be constructed. At each stage of SFP, the approximate conditionals are used to define a Gibbs sampling process, which is convergent to the full joint posterior. By the analytical marginals efficient learning methods in the context of Artificial Neural Networks are outlined. Off--line and incremental Bayesian inference and Maximum Likelihood Estimation from the posterior is performed in classification and regression examples. A comparison of SFP with other Monte Carlo strategies in the general problem of sampling from arbitrary densities is also presented. It is shown that SFP is able to jump large low--probabilty regions without the need of a careful tuning of any step size parameter. In fact, the SFP method requires only a small set of meaningful parameters which can be selected following clear, problem--independent guidelines. The computation cost of SFP, measured in terms of loss function evaluations, grows linearly with the given model's dimension.

Characterization of the convergence of stationary Fokker-Planck learning

The convergence properties of the stationary Fokker-Planck algorithm for the estimation of the asymptotic density of stochastic search processes is studied. Theoretical and empirical arguments for the characterization of convergence of the estimation in the case of separable and nonseparable nonlinear optimization problems are given. Some implications of the convergence of stationary Fokker-Planck learning for the inference of parameters in artificial neural network models are outlined.

Stationary probability density of stochastic search processes in global optimization

A method for the construction of approximate analytical expressions for the stationary marginal densities of general stochastic search processes is proposed. By the marginal densities, regions of the search space that with high probability contain the global optima can be readily defined. The density estimation procedure involves a controlled number of linear operations, with a computational cost per iteration that grows linearly with problem size.