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Abstract

We discuss the use of nonparametric Bayesian models in density estimation, arguably one of the most basic statistical inference problems. In this chapter we introduce the Dirichlet process prior and variations of it that are the by far most commonly used nonparametric Bayesian models used in this context. Variations include the Dirichlet process mixture and the finite Dirichlet process. One critical reason for the extensive use of these models is the availability of computation efficient methods for posterior simulation. We discuss several such methods.

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Müller, P., Quintana, F.A., Jara, A., Hanson, T. (2015). Density Estimation: DP Models. In: Bayesian Nonparametric Data Analysis. Springer Series in Statistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18968-0_2

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