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New models for Markov random fields

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

Noel Cressie*
Affiliation:
Iowa State University
Subhash Lele*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
*
Postal address: Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA 50011–1210, USA.
∗∗ Postal address: Department of Biostatistics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Abstract

The Hammersley–Clifford theorem gives the form that the joint probability density (or mass) function of a Markov random field must take. Its exponent must be a sum of functions of variables, where each function in the summand involves only those variables whose sites form a clique. From a statistical modeling point of view, it is important to establish the converse result, namely, to give the conditional probability specifications that yield a Markov random field. Besag (1974) addressed this question by developing a one-parameter exponential family of conditional probability models. In this article, we develop new models for Markov random fields by establishing sufficient conditions for the conditional probability specifications to yield a Markov random field.

MSC classification

Type
Research Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1992 

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Footnotes

Research partially supported by the NSF under Grants DMS8902812 and DMS9001862.

References

Besag, J. (1974) Spatial interaction and the statistical analysis of lattice systems. J. R. Statist. Soc. B 36, 192225.Google Scholar
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Cressie, N. (1991) Statistics for Spatial Data. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
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Hammersley, J. M. and Clifford, P. (1971) Markov fields on finite graphs and lattices. Unpublished manuscript, Oxford University.Google Scholar