OVERVIEW OF THE SOFTWARE

This software is being distributed primarily to further research in
Bayesian learning for models based on neural networks and Gaussian
processes.  The software is designed for potentially wider use,
however.  In particular, the programs and modules in the 'util'
directory are of general utility, and those in the 'mc' directory
provide generic support for Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.  These
facilities are specialized to neural network learning by the modules
and programs in the 'net' directory, and to Gaussian process models by
the modules and programs in the 'gp' directory.  The 'bvg' directory
demonstrates in a simple context how the generic facilities in 'util'
and 'mc' can be specialized for other tasks, but users interested only
in neural networks or Gaussian processes need not concern themselves
with this.  This section provides an overview of the facilities
offered by these various components of the software.


Log files

All the programs make use of a "log file" facility supported by
modules and programs in 'util'.  A log file records all the
information pertaining to a "run" of an iterative program.  The first
few records of the log file (with "indexes" of -1) contain the
specifications for the run (such as the network architecture and the
source of training data).  These records are written by "spec"
programs (eg, 'net-spec' and 'data-spec') that the user invokes at the
beginning of the run.  Once the run has been specified, the program
that performs iterations is invoked (eg, 'net-mc').  This program will
append further records to the log file, one for each iteration for
which the user has asked the state to be saved, which will usually be
every iteration, unless minimizing disk usage is a concern.  Each
record written has the iteration number as its index, and contains the
complete state of the program at that time (eg, all the parameters and
hyperparameters of the network being trained).

Note that log files contain binary data; they are not human-readable.

After an iterative program finishes, the user may decide to let the
run continue for more iterations.  This is easily done by just
invoking the program again with a larger iteration limit, whereupon it
restarts using the last state stored in the log file, and then appends
records to the log file for further iterations.

The information about iterations that is stored in the log file can be
examined using various programs both during and after a run.  In
particular, the user can plot the progress of various quantities
during the course of the run, without having to decide beforehand
which quantities will be of interest.  The states saved at various
iterations are also the basis for making Monte Carlo estimates, and in
particular, for making Bayesian predictions based on a sample of
networks or Gaussian processes from the posterior distribution.


Models and data

The 'util' directory also contains modules and programs that specify
the final portion of a probabilistic model (which is independent of
the details of networks or other functional schemes), that support
reading of numeric input from data files or other sources, and that
specify sets of training and test cases for supervised learning
procedures (such as those based on multilayer perceptron networks).

The models supported include those for regression, classification, 
and survival analysis.  The survial analysis models were recently
implemented, and should be regarded as experimental.  See
model-spec.doc for details

The data files used must contain numbers in standard ASCII form, with
one line per case, but there is considerable freedom regarding
separators and in the ordering of items.  "Input" and "target" items
that pertain to a case may come from the same file, or different
files, and the position within a line of each item may be specified
independently.  The set of cases (lines) to be used for training or
testing can be specified to be a subset of all the lines in a file.
The data source can also be specified to be the output of a program,
rather than a data file.

Specifications for where the training and test data comes from are
written to a log file by the 'data-spec' program, which also allows
the user to specify that certain transformations are to be done to the
data items before they are used.  In particular, the data can be
translated and re-scaled in a user-specified way, or by amounts that
are automatically determined from the training data.

The source of "test" data can also be specified explicitly by
arguments to the relevant commands, allowing the final results of
learning to be applied to any data set for which predictions are
desired.

See data-spec.doc for details on how all this is specified.


Random number generation

A scheme for combining real and pseudo random numbers is implemented
by modules in the 'util' directory, along with procedures for sampling
from various standard distributions, and for saving the state of the
random number generator.

The 'rand-seed' program is used to specify a random number seed to use
for a run.  The state of the random number generator is saved with
each iteration in the log file in order to ensure that resuming a run
produces the same results as if the run had continued without
stopping.


Markov chain Monte Carlo

The 'mc' directory contains modules and programs that support the use
of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.  A Markov chain Monte Carlo
application is created by adding modules that compute certain
application-specific quantities, of which the most central is the
probability distribution to sample from.  For example, the neural
network application provides a procedure for computing the posterior
probability density of the network parameters.  An application may
also provide implementations of specialized sampling procedures, such
as the procedures for doing Gibbs sampling for hyperparameters in the
neural network application.

A variety of Markov chain methods are supported by the 'mc' system,
including some that are not of much use in the neural network and
Gaussian process applications.  In particular, the "tempering" methods
are not currently implemented for the neural networks or Gaussian
processes, though they may be in future.  Users interested only in
neural networks or Gaussian processes should therefore ignore the
tempering facilities (such as the 'mc-temp-sched' and 'mc-temp-filter'
programs).

For the user of neural network or Gaussian process models, the most
important 'mc' program is 'mc-spec', which is used to specify how the
Markov chain sampling is to be done.  There are a large number of
reasonable ways of sampling for neural networks or Gaussian processes.
The best way is still the subject of research.  Good results can be
obtained using several standard approaches, however, as described in
the examples in other sections of this documentation.  You can also
read all about the various methods in mc-spec.doc.


Neural network models

The 'net' directory contains the modules and programs that implement
Bayesian learning for models based on multilayer perceptron networks,
making use of the modules in the 'util' and 'mc' directories.  The
networks and data models supported are as described in my book,
Bayesian Learning for Neural Networks, with the addition of
experimental models for survival analysis.

A network training run is started with the 'net-spec' program, which
creates a log file to which it writes specifications for the network
architecture and priors.  In a simple run, the 'model-spec',
'data-spec' and 'mc-spec' programs would then be used to specify the
way the outputs of the network are used to model the targets in the
dataset, what data makes up the training set (and perhaps the test
set), and the way the sampling should be done.  The 'net-mc' program
(a specialization of the generic 'xxx-mc' program) would then be
invoked to do the actual sampling.  Finally, the 'net-pred' program
would be used to make predictions for test cases based on the networks
saved in the log file.

Usually, one would want to see how the run had gone before making
predictions.  The 'net-display' program allows one to examine the
network parameters and hyperparameters at any specified iteration.
The 'net-plt' program can be used to obtain the values of various
quantities, such as the training set error, for some range of
iterations.  The output of 'net-plt' would usually be piped to a
suitable plot program for visual examination, though it is also
possible to directly look at the numbers.

Several other programs are also present in the 'net' directory.  Some
of these will probably not be of interest to the ordinary user, as
they were written for debugging purposes, or to do specialized tasks
relating to my thesis.


Gaussian process models

The 'gp' directory contains the modules and programs that implement
Bayesian inference for Gaussian process models, making use of the
modules in the 'util' and 'mc' directories.  These Gaussian process
programs are analogous to the neural network programs.  The models
based on Gaussian processes are also similar to models based on large
neural networks using Gaussian priors (or other priors with finite
variance).

To start, the 'gp-spec' program is used to specify a Gaussian process
model - that is, to specify the form of the covariance function, and
the priors on the hyperparameters that control this covariance
function.  The 'model-spec' and 'data-spec' programs are then be used
to specify how the Gaussian process is used to model data, and the
source of the training data (and possibly test data).  The Markov
chain sampling method is then specified using 'mc-spec', and sampling
is done using 'gp-mc'.  Finally, 'gp-pred' is used to make predictions
for test cases using the Gaussian processes that were saved in the log
file by 'gp-mc'.

The 'gp-display' and 'gp-plt' programs can be used to view the
Gaussian processes generated by 'gp-mc', both during and after the
run.  Several other programs in the 'gp' directory may also be of
interest.


Quantities obtainable from log files

The 'xxx-plt' programs (eg, 'net-plt' and 'gp-plt') are the principal
means by which simulation runs are monitored.  These programs allow
one to see the values of various "quantities", evaluated for each
iteration stored in a log file within some range.  Some other programs
(eg, 'xxx-hist') also use the same set of quantities.

A quantity is specified by an identifying character, perhaps with a
numeric modifier.  Some quantities are single numeric values
(scalars); others are arrays of values, in which case the desired
range of values is also specified following an "@" sign.  Some
quantities can be either scalars or arrays, depending on whether a
range specification is included.

There is a hierarchy of quantities, as defined by modules at different
levels.  A few quantities are universally defined - principally 't',
the index of the current iteration.  Many more are defined for any
Markov chain Monte Carlo application - such as 'r', the rejection rate
for Metropolis or Hybrid Monte Carlo updates.  A large number of
quantities specific to neural networks or to Gaussian processes are
also defined - for example, 'b', the average squared error on the
training set, and 'n', the current value of the noise standard
deviation (for a regression model).  For details, see quantities.doc,
mc-quantities.doc, net-quantities.doc, and gp-quantities.doc.