# Thread: what dose the posterior mean?

1. ## what dose the posterior mean?

hello everyone,I'm from china,and i need your help.there are some words in a paper as follows :

The potential functions are defined as the negative log posterior of the two segments’ ordinal depths conditioned on the curve cues, weighted by the curve length |Ci|

And probably the symbol Pr is short for Posterior.
but what dose the Pr mean?
thank you very much!

2. Originally Posted by ChinaPanda
hello everyone,I'm from china,and i need your help.there are some words in a paper as follows :

The potential functions are defined as the negative log posterior of the two segments’ ordinal depths conditioned on the curve cues, weighted by the curve length |Ci|

And probably the symbol Pr is short for Posterior.
but what dose the Pr mean?
thank you very much!
Posterior probability is a concept that occurs in Bayesian probability theory. You can read about it on this Wikipedia page. In this theory, it is often convenient to take the logarithm of the probability. Since a probability is less than 1, its logarithm is negative. So, again as a matter of convenience, it is usual to deal with the negative of the logarithm. That gives you the "negative log posterior".

The abbreviation "Pr" almost always stands for "probability".

3. Originally Posted by Opalg
Posterior probability is a concept that occurs in Bayesian probability theory. You can read about it on this Wikipedia page. In this theory, it is often convenient to take the logarithm of the probability. Since a probability is less than 1, its logarithm is negative. So, again as a matter of convenience, it is usual to deal with the negative of the logarithm. That gives you the "negative log posterior".

The abbreviation "Pr" almost always stands for "probability".

Thank you very much.ps:how to give the"thanks" to you ?I find you have got many "thanks".