Bayesian inference tools for inverse problems

Abstract

In this paper, first the basics of Bayesian inference with a parametric model of the data is presented. Then, the needed extensions are given when dealing with inverse problems and in particular the linear models such as Deconvolution or image reconstruction in Computed Tomography (CT). The main point to discuss then is the prior modeling of signals and images. A classification of these priors is presented, first in separable and Markovien models and then in simple or hierarchical with hidden variables. For practical applications, we need also to consider the estimation of the hyper parameters. Finally, we see that we have to infer simultaneously on the unknowns, the hidden variables and the hyper parameters. Very often, the expression of this joint posterior law is too complex to be handled directly. Indeed, rarely we can obtain analytical solutions to any point estimators such the Maximum A posteriori (MAP) or Posterior Mean (PM). Three main tools are then can be used: Laplace approximation (LAP), Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Bayesian Variational Approximations (BVA). To illustrate all these aspects, we will consider a deconvolution problem where we know that the input signal is sparse and propose to use a Student-t prior for that. Then, to handle the Bayesian computations with this model, we use the property of Student-t which is modelling it via an infinite mixture of Gaussians, introducing thus hidden variables which are the variances. Then, the expression of the joint posterior of the input signal samples, the hidden variables (which are here the inverse variances of those samples) and the hyper-parameters of the problem (for example the variance of the noise) is given. From this point, we will present the joint maximization by alternate optimization and the three possible approximation methods. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied in different applications such as mass spectrometry, spectrum estimation of quasi periodic biological signals and X ray computed tomography. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.