Abstract
AbstractWe give a brief introduction to the minimum description length (MDL) principle. The MDL principle is a mathematical formulation of Occam’s razor. It says ‘simple explanations of a given phenomenon are to be preferred over complex ones.’ This is recognized as one of basic stances of scientists, and plays an important role in statistics and machine learning. In particular, Rissanen proposed MDL criterion for statistical model selection based on information theory in 1978. After that, much literature has been published and the notion of MDL principle was founded in the 1990s. In this article, we review some important results on the MDL principle.KeywordsBayes mixtureLaplace estimatorMDLModel selectionMinimax regretUniversal code
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
