This section considers positive integers, n≥1, unless otherwise stated.
(If you have non-negative integers, n≥0, just add one first.)
This is the first, and perhaps
the most fundamental, infinite data-space.
A code over positive integers can be used to transmit
data from any enumerable set.
It models, for example, the number of coin-tosses until
a head is thrown, including the head, using a coin where P(head)=p,
i.e. P(Tn-1H) = P(T)n-1.P(H).
The geometric distribution is a proper distribution:
∞
Σ
n=1
(1-p)n-1p
= p(1 + q + q2 + q3 +...)
where q=1-p
= p/(1-q) = p/p = 1
The expected value of n is given by
∞
Σ
n=1
nqn-1p
= p(1 + 2q + 3q2 + ...)
= p/(1-q)2 = 1/p
An efficient code can be based on the geometric distribution
(if the source comes from such a distribution):
msgLen(n) = -(n-1).log2(1-p) - log2(p)
E.g.,
choosing a geometric distribution with p=0.5 amounts to the
use of a unary code:
integer
code word
probability
1
0
1/2
2
10
1/4
3
110
1/8
4
1110
1/16
...
MML
We can describe a geometric distribution by a finite-state machine
with states S and S'.
The machine starts in state S;
it either outputs a `1' and returns to S
or outputs a `0' and goes to S':
S >-----(1)-----> S
S >-----(0)-----> S'
The transitions out of state S,
which it is natural to label `1' and `0',
form the "states" of a
2-state / binomial
distribution.
(Try not to confuse the states of the machine and of the distribution.)
Notes
L.Allison, C.S.Wallace and C.N.Yee,
Finite-State Models in the Alignment of Macro-Molecules,
J.Molec.Evol. 35(1) pp.77-89, 1992, or see
[TR90/148].
The geometric distribution is sometimes the "right"
distribution for a problem, but even if not it can still
be a good approximation, and the fact that its -log is
a linear function of `n' can be convenient algorithmically (fast) --
(probabilistic) finite-state automata
(PFSA, FSA, hidden Markov models HMM)
"count" in unary.
A mixture of two or more geometrics (i.e. piece-wise linear "costs")
is still convenient algorithmically and may be a better model for
some problems; see fig 9 of
[TR90/148].
The Poisson distribution with parameter α>0, for n≥0:
P(n) =
e-α αn
n!
n≥0
NB. n≥0.
The expectation equals the variance equals α.
P(n) = (α/n) P(n-1),
so P(n) increases while n<α and decreases when n>α,
i.e. the mode is α;
this is also the maximum likelihood estimate of α
given observed data `n'.
The Poisson distribution can be derived (e.g. Meyer 1970)
as the distribution of the number of particle decays in a radioactive source
in unit time where α is the rate,
i.e. where the probability of a decay
in a small time interval, dt, is α.dt.
MML
We observe a value of `n' (e.g. n decays in unit time).
The negative log likelhood, i.e. -log P(n) is
-log(P(n|α))
= α - n.log α + log n!
(Recalling
Stirling's
approximation,
loge(n!)
= n.loge(n)-n+0.5loge(n)+0.5loge(2pi)+...,
we see that the message length goes up roughly in proportion with n.log(n).)
The second derivative with respect to the parameter α is
n/α2.
The expectation of this over n, i.e. the
Fisher
information, is
α/α2 = 1/α
The MML estimate of α is that value that minimises the message length
For the prior h(α) = (1/A).e-α/A,
differentiate the msgLen w.r.t. α and set to zero:
d/d α {
-log 1/A + α/A
//from h
+ α - n.log α + log n!
//from likelihood
- 1/2 log α
//from F
+ (-log 12 +1)/2 }
= 1/A + 1 - n/α - 1/(2.α)
= 1/A + 1 - (n+1/2)/α
= 0
i.e. we make the MML estimate (inference)
α' = (n+1/2) / (1+1/A).
The uncertainty region in the estimate of the parameter is about
sqrt(12/F(α')),
i.e. sqrt(12 α').
Poisson Process
The Poisson process models, for example, the number of radioactive decays
in a given time t:
P(n,t) =
e-α.t(α.t)n
n!
n≥0
If we observe data `n' over time `t',
the MML estimate of α (Wallace & Dowe 1997) is
α' = (n+1/2)/(t+1/A)
Notes
C. S. Wallace & D. L. Dowe.
MML Mixture Modelling of Multi-state, Poisson, von Mises Circular
and Gaussian Distributions.
Proc. 6th Int. Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics,
pp.529-536, 1997
If you know that an integer, n, lies in the interval [1,N] (or in [0,N-1])
then it can be encoded in log2(N) bits,
(and this is an optimal code if
the probability distribution is uniform).
What to do when there is no such bound N?
Obviously transmit the length of the code word for n first.
But how to transmit the length?
Transmit its length first, of course!
A sound code can in fact be based on this intuitive idea;
note that logk(n)
decreases very rapidly as k increases.
The leading bit of n is necessarily ``1''
so there is no need to transmit it, except that
it can be used as a flag to determine whether the current value
is a length or the final value of n proper;
lengths are thus given a leading ``0''.
Such a prefix code can be used to code integers of arbitrary size.
Unfortunately the length of a code word as a function of n
is neither convex nor smooth although it is
monotonic increasing+.
integer
components
code word
1
1
1
2
2,2
00 10
3
2,3
00 11
4
2,3,4
00 01 100,
e.g., ~ code'(3)++100
5
2,3,5
00 01 101
6
2,3,6
00 01 110
7
2,3,7
00 01 111
8
2,3,4,8
00 01 000 1000,
e.g., ~ code'(4)++1000
9
2,3,4,9
00 01 000 1001
10
2,3,4,10
00 01 000 1010
...
15
2,3,4,15
00 01 000 1111
16
2,3,5,16
00 01 001 10000,
e.g., ~ code'(5)++10000
...
Note, the spaces in the above code words are only there
to make the components stand out.
The code above is valid, but not at all efficient.
In fact we can do better,
i.e. achieve a non-redundant code,
by using lengths minus one:
The probability distribution P(n) has an infinite expectation:
the probability of n is greater than under the 1/(n.(n+1))
distribution (which has an infinite expectation) for large n.
Use the HTML FORM below to encode an integer `n':
Rissanen (1983) gives, r(n),
r(n) = log2*(n) + log2(2.865)
where log2*(n) = log2 n + log2 log2 n + ... NB. +ve terms only
P(n) = 2-r(n)
as a continuous approximation to code-word lengths and
advocates 2-r(n) as a "universal prior" for integers.
The "2.865" is a normalisation constant to make
the distribution (of the approximation) sum to 1.0.
Note that r(n) is continuous but it (the area under the curve) is not convex
being concave at n=2, 4, 16, 216, ... etc.
This can cause problems for some
optimisation algorithms (Allison & Yee 1990).
Notes
P. Elias.
Universal Codeword Sets and Representations for the Integers.
IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory IT-21 pp.194-203, 1975
Introduced this kind of code for the integers
(- Farr 1999)
S. K. Leung-Yan-Cheong & T. M. Cover.
Some Equivalences between Shannon Entropy and Kolmogorov Complexity.
IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory IT-24 pp.331-338, 1978
Investigated this kind of code for the integers
(- Farr 1999)
J. Rissanen.
A Universal Prior for Integers and Estimation by
Minimum Description Length.
Annals of Statistics 11(2) pp.416-431, 1983.
Advocates the use of the log* distribution
and code.
G. Farr. Information Theory and MML Inference.
School of Computer Science and Software Engineering,
Monash University, 1999.
An excellent source on "universal" codes
(and other things).
Note, a code-word always has one more zero than it has ones.
This allows the end of a code word to be detected.
It also allows the word to be decoded.
Note for example that `1' and `10' are not code words.
The code is efficient, that is to say
the sum over all words, w, of 2-|w| is one.
The code is equivalent to giving a tree with code w
a probability of 2-|w|:
This would be difficult to prove combinatorially, but
consider all infinitely long strings over {0,1}.
We make them all equally probable in the sense that if
they are truncated after k-bits,
then the 2k truncated strings are all equally likely,
i.e. of probability 1/2k, for all k.
The sum of the probabilities of the truncated strings of
an arbitrary length k is clearly 1.
Now 0 (pr=0.5) and 1 (pr=0.5) can be taken as the steps in a random walk.
It is known that a one-dimensional random walk returns to the starting point
with probability 1.0.
Taking the set of infinitely long strings over {0,1},
almost every one of them, i.e. all but a subset having total probability 0.0,
will at some point have one more `0' than `1's.
Truncate each such string at the first such point.
The probability of such a truncated string, w, is 1/2|w|.
This also equals the sum of the probabilities
of all of its infinite extensions.
i.e. the sum of the probabilities of all such code words is 1.0.
This can be used as the basis of a code for positive integers:
Enumerate the code words in order of increasing length
and within that, for a given length, lexicographically say:
integer
code word
probability
1
0
1/2
2
100
1/8
3
10100
1/32
4
11000
1/32
5
1010100
1/128 etc.
6
1011000
7
1100100
8
1101000
9
1110000
10
101010100
1/512 etc.
11
101011000
12
101100100
13
101101000
14
101110000
15
110010100
16
110011000
17
110100100
18
110101000
19
110110000
20
111000100
21
111001000
22
111010000
23
111100000
24
10101010100
1/2048
...
...
...
The first code word of length 2k+3 is 1(01)k00 and
the last is 1k+10k+2.
We see that the code-word lengths
increase in smaller and more regular jumps
than is the case for the log* code.
Notes
C. S. Wallace & J. D. Patrick. Coding Decision Trees.
Machine Learning, 11, pp.7-22, 1993.
The tree-code is used to code the topology of
classification trees (also known as
[decision-trees]).
This allows simple trees and complex trees to be compared fairly.
Other information held in the nodes of the trees is also coded.