Turning ON (and OFF)
John Skilling · AIP conference proceedings · 2005
What’s there, and how much? Given some data, which of an object’s possible components are present, and at what quantity?By their nature, digital ON/OFF problems can lack continuity, and the likelihood function may well have awkward properties that inhibit many of today’s algorithms. A solution to some of these problems is to use nested sampling, which explores the state‐space more directly, and can be rather easier to implement as well as having more power.Exploring the plausible patterns of switching involves digital choices, which can be interpreted in terms of a competition between transition engines that supply plausible exploratory steps. When quantitation is included, it is usually helpful to marginalise over the quantities being changed.