Variational inference accelerates accurate DNA mixture deconvolution

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

We investigate a class of DNA mixture deconvolution algorithms based on variational inference, and we show that this can significantly reduce computational runtimes with little or no effect on the accuracy and precision of the result. In particular, we consider Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) and Variational Inference (VI) with an evidence lower-bound objective. Both provide alternatives to the commonly used Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo methods for estimating the model posterior in Bayesian probabilistic genotyping. We demonstrate that both SVGD and VI significantly reduce computational costs over the current state of the art. Importantly, VI does so without sacrificing precision or accuracy, presenting an overall improvement over previously published methods.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number102890
JournalForensic Science International: Genetics
Volume65
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 37257308
ORCID /0000-0003-4414-4340/work/159608270

Keywords

Keywords

  • Bayesian inference, Precision, Probabilistic genotyping, Runtime, Stein variational gradient descent, Variational inference