Nonparametric Bayesian Multiple Change Point Problems

Since changepoint identification is important in many data analysis problem, we wish to make inference about the locations of one or more changepoints of the sequence. We consider the Bayesian nonparameteric inference for multiple changepoint problem using a Bayesian segmentation procedure proposed by Yang and Kuo (2000). A mixture of products of Dirichlet process is used as a prior distribution. To decide whether there exists a single change or not, our approach depends on nonparametric Bayesian Schwartz information criterion at each step. We discuss how to choose the precision parameter (total mass parameter) in nonparametric setting and show that the discreteness of the Dirichlet process prior can ha17e a large effect on the nonparametric Bayesian Schwartz information criterion and leads to conclusions that are very different results from reasonable parametric model. One example is proposed to show this effect.