Minimum description length

Minimum Description Length ( MDL ; German  minimum description length ) is an information-theoretical method that was introduced by Jorma Rissanen in 1978 to describe regularities in measured data. The more the data can be compressed , the greater the proportion of order in the signal. The MDL is used for inductive inference .

In the field of communications engineering, the MDL criterion is used to estimate the number of signals present.

See also

• Information criterion
• Kolmogorov Complexity

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jorma Rissanen: Modeling by shortest data description . In: Automatica . tape 14 , no. 5 , 1978, p. 465 - 471 , doi : 10.1016 / 0005-1098 (78) 90005-5 .

Web links

• Minimum Description Length (accessed February 23, 2018)
• Minimum Description Length Principle (accessed February 23, 2018)
• Model Selection and the Principle of Minimum Description Length (accessed February 23, 2018)
• Minimum Description Length Model Selection (accessed February 23, 2018)