local.model.prior: Computes a prior to be used for edge-wise model inference
Description
The function pairwise.posterior infers a phenotypic hierarchy edge by edge by
choosing between four models (unconnected, subset, superset, undistinguishable).
For each edge, local.model.prior computes a prior distribution over the four models.
It can be used to ensure sparsity of the graph and high confidence in results.
Usage
local.model.prior(size,n,bias)
Arguments
size
expected number of edges in the graph.
n
number of perturbed genes in the dataset, number of nodes in the graph
bias
the factor by which the double-headed edge is preferred over the single-headed edges
Value
a distribution over four states: a vector of four positive real numbers summing to one
Details
A graph on n nodes has N=n*(n-1)/2 possible directed edges (one- or bi-directional).
If each edge occurs with probability $p$, we expect to see $Np$ edges in the graph.
The function local.model.prior takes the number of genes (n) and the
expected number of edges (size) as an input and computes a prior distribution
for edge occurrence: no edge with probability size/N, and the probability for
edge existence being split over the three edge models with a bias towards the conservative
double-headed model specified by bias. To ensure sparsity, the size should
be chosen small compared to the number of possible edges.