Theory and Use of the EM Algorithm

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Theory and Use of the EM Algorithm introduces the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and provides an intuitive and mathematically rigorous understanding of this method. It describes in detail two of the most popular applications of EM: estimating Gaussian mixture models (GMMs), and estimating hidden Markov models (HMMs). It also covers the use of EM for learning an optimal mixture of fixed models, for estimating the parameters of a compound Dirichlet distribution, and for disentangling superimposed signals. It discusses problems that arise in practice with EM, and variants of the algorithm that help deal with these challenges.

Theory and Use of the EM Algorithm is designed to be useful to both the EM novice and the experienced EM user looking to better understand the method and its use.