Learning continuous sparse pairwise Markov random fields

Abstract

We consider learning a sparse pairwise Markov Random Field with continuous valued variables from i.i.d samples. We adapt the framework of generalized interaction screening objective to this setting and provide finite-sample analysis revealing sample complexity scaling logarithmically with the number of variables, as in the discrete and Gaussian settings. Our approach is applicable to a large class of pairwise Markov Random Fields with continuous variables and also has desirable asymptotic properties, including consistency and normality under mild conditions. Further, we establish that the population version of generalized interaction screening objective can be interpreted as local maximum likelihood estimation. As part of our analysis, we introduce a robust variation of sparse linear regression à la Lasso, which may be of interest in its own right.