Variational Expectation Maximization

Identity Notes & Concept Scope This record denotes variational EM with point-estimated model parameters and an explicitly restricted latent-posterior family, as analyzed by Gunawardana-Byrne. It is not all variational inference, an inference-only fit with fixed model parameters, fully Bayesian parameter inference, an amortized architecture, or a particular score/pathwise gradient estimator. Mean-field factorization is one family choice rather than the definition. Exact global coordinate solves are the clean projection realization; partial numerical solves need their own progress conditions. No normalized match across all442pinned AIO labels/scoped synonyms and480native IDs/names/aliases, including GAM and VEM probes. Full-checkout searches include ignored and hidden files in worktree and main;59and61matched lines reduce to31distinct text windows, all read. Hits denote topic-model fitting steps, prior frontier leads, unrelated GAM generalized-additive-model context or programming mnemonics. GAM is the joint distribution/parameter KL-descent framework, not GEM with its exact current E-step. Variational EM fits model parameters with a restricted posterior family; BBVI is a stochastic variational-gradient procedure, NVIL specifies amortized stochastic learning, and structured factorial-HMM inference is model-specific. Melting shares its fixed-bandwidth weighted-mean update with Gaussian mean shift; its named outer heating, membership tree and persistence selection supply the distinct scope. Bare GAM/VEM aliases are qualified. Absence is bounded to this snapshot, corpus and inspected semantic neighborhood. Identity-search counts: 59 matched lines in the worktree and 61 in main; all 31 distinct matching-text windows were read, with ignored and hidden files included.