Bayesian probability transforms for BM25 retrieval scores
Project description
Bayesian BM25
The reference implementation of the Bayesian BM25 and From Bayesian Inference to Neural Computation papers, by the original author. Converts raw BM25 retrieval scores into calibrated relevance probabilities using Bayesian inference.
Overview
Standard BM25 produces unbounded scores that lack consistent meaning across queries, making threshold-based filtering and multi-signal fusion unreliable. Bayesian BM25 addresses this by applying a sigmoid likelihood model with a composite prior (term frequency + document length normalization) and computing Bayesian posteriors that output well-calibrated probabilities in [0, 1]. A corpus-level base rate prior further improves calibration by 68–77% without requiring relevance labels.
Key capabilities:
- Score-to-probability transform — convert raw BM25 scores into calibrated relevance probabilities via sigmoid likelihood + composite prior + Bayesian posterior
- Base rate calibration — corpus-level base rate prior estimated from score distribution (95th percentile, mixture model, or elbow detection) decomposes the posterior into three additive log-odds terms, reducing expected calibration error by 68–77% without relevance labels
- Parameter learning — batch gradient descent or online SGD with EMA-smoothed gradients and Polyak averaging, with three training modes: balanced (C1), prior-aware (C2), and prior-free (C3)
- Probabilistic fusion — combine multiple probability signals using AND, OR, NOT, and log-odds conjunction with multiplicative confidence scaling, optional per-signal reliability weights (Log-OP), and sparse signal gating (ReLU/Swish activations from Paper 2, Theorems 6.5.3/6.7.4)
- Learnable fusion weights —
LearnableLogOddsWeightslearns per-signal reliability from labeled data via a Hebbian gradient that is backprop-free, starting from Naive Bayes uniform initialization (Remark 5.3.2) - Attention-based fusion —
AttentionLogOddsWeightslearns query-dependent signal weights via attention mechanism (Paper 2, Section 8), replacing static weights with query-adaptive weighting - Hybrid search —
cosine_to_probability()converts vector similarity scores to probabilities for fusion with BM25 signals via weighted log-odds conjunction - WAND pruning —
wand_upper_bound()computes safe Bayesian probability upper bounds for document pruning in top-k retrieval - Calibration metrics —
expected_calibration_error(),brier_score(),reliability_diagram(), andcalibration_report()for evaluating probability quality, withCalibrationReportbundling all metrics into a single diagnostic - Fusion debugger —
FusionDebuggerrecords every intermediate value through the full pipeline (likelihood, prior, posterior, fusion) for transparent inspection, document comparison, and crossover detection; supports hierarchical fusion tracing with AND/OR/NOT composition - Multi-field search —
MultiFieldScorermaintains separate BM25 indexes per field and fuses field-level probabilities via log-odds conjunction with configurable per-field weights - Search integration — drop-in scorer wrapping bm25s that returns probabilities instead of raw scores
Adoption
- MTEB — included as a baseline retrieval model (
bb25) for the Massive Text Embedding Benchmark - txtai — used for BM25 score normalization in hybrid search (
normalize="bayesian-bm25") - UQA — used as the scoring operator for probabilistic text retrieval and multi-signal fusion in the unified query algebra
Installation
pip install bayesian-bm25
To use the integrated search scorer (requires bm25s):
pip install bayesian-bm25[scorer]
Quick Start
Converting BM25 Scores to Probabilities
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianProbabilityTransform
transform = BayesianProbabilityTransform(alpha=1.5, beta=1.0, base_rate=0.01)
scores = np.array([0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0])
tfs = np.array([1, 2, 3, 5, 8])
doc_len_ratios = np.array([0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1.0, 1.5])
probabilities = transform.score_to_probability(scores, tfs, doc_len_ratios)
End-to-End Search with Probabilities
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianBM25Scorer
corpus_tokens = [
["python", "machine", "learning"],
["deep", "learning", "neural", "networks"],
["data", "visualization", "tools"],
]
scorer = BayesianBM25Scorer(k1=1.2, b=0.75, method="lucene", base_rate="auto")
scorer.index(corpus_tokens, show_progress=False)
doc_ids, probabilities = scorer.retrieve([["machine", "learning"]], k=3)
Multi-Field Search
from bayesian_bm25 import MultiFieldScorer
documents = [
{"title": ["bayesian", "bm25"], "body": ["probabilistic", "framework", "search"]},
{"title": ["neural", "networks"], "body": ["deep", "learning", "models"]},
{"title": ["information", "retrieval"], "body": ["search", "ranking", "relevance"]},
]
scorer = MultiFieldScorer(
fields=["title", "body"],
field_weights={"title": 0.4, "body": 0.6},
k1=1.2, b=0.75, method="lucene",
)
scorer.index(documents, show_progress=False)
doc_ids, probabilities = scorer.retrieve(["bayesian", "search"], k=3)
Combining Multiple Signals
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import log_odds_conjunction, prob_and, prob_not, prob_or
signals = np.array([0.85, 0.70, 0.60])
prob_and(signals) # 0.357 (shrinkage problem)
log_odds_conjunction(signals) # 0.773 (agreement-aware)
# Exclusion query: "python AND NOT java"
p_python, p_java = 0.90, 0.75
prob_and(np.array([p_python, prob_not(p_java)])) # 0.225
Hybrid Text + Vector Search
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import cosine_to_probability, log_odds_conjunction
# BM25 probabilities (from Bayesian BM25)
bm25_probs = np.array([0.85, 0.60, 0.40])
# Vector search cosine similarities -> probabilities
cosine_scores = np.array([0.92, 0.35, 0.70])
vector_probs = cosine_to_probability(cosine_scores) # [0.96, 0.675, 0.85]
# Fuse with reliability weights (BM25 weight=0.6, vector weight=0.4)
stacked = np.stack([bm25_probs, vector_probs], axis=-1)
fused = log_odds_conjunction(stacked, weights=np.array([0.6, 0.4]))
# Fuse with weights and confidence scaling (alpha + weights compose)
fused = log_odds_conjunction(stacked, alpha=0.5, weights=np.array([0.6, 0.4]))
# Gated fusion: ReLU/Swish activation in logit space (Paper 2, Theorems 6.5.3/6.7.4)
fused_relu = log_odds_conjunction(stacked, gating="relu") # MAP estimation
fused_swish = log_odds_conjunction(stacked, gating="swish") # Bayes estimation
Learning Fusion Weights from Data
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import LearnableLogOddsWeights
# 3 retrieval signals: BM25, vector search, metadata match
learner = LearnableLogOddsWeights(n_signals=3, alpha=0.0)
# Initial weights are uniform: [0.333, 0.333, 0.333]
# Batch fit from labeled data (probs: m x 3, labels: m)
learner.fit(training_probs, training_labels, learning_rate=0.1)
# Learned weights reflect signal reliability: [0.70, 0.19, 0.11]
# Online refinement from streaming feedback
for probs, label in feedback_stream:
learner.update(probs, label, learning_rate=0.05, momentum=0.9)
# Inference with Polyak-averaged weights for stability
fused = learner(test_probs, use_averaged=True)
Attention-Based Fusion
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import AttentionLogOddsWeights
# 2 retrieval signals, 3 query features, per-signal logit normalization
attn = AttentionLogOddsWeights(
n_signals=2, n_query_features=3, alpha=0.5, normalize=True,
)
# Train on labeled data with query features
# training_probs: (m, 2), training_labels: (m,), query_features: (m, 3)
attn.fit(training_probs, training_labels, query_features,
learning_rate=0.01, max_iterations=500)
# Query-dependent fusion: weights adapt per query
fused = attn(test_probs, test_features, use_averaged=True)
WAND Pruning with Bayesian Upper Bounds
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianProbabilityTransform
transform = BayesianProbabilityTransform(alpha=1.5, beta=2.0, base_rate=0.01)
# Standard BM25 upper bound per query term
bm25_upper_bound = 5.0
# Bayesian upper bound for safe pruning — any document's actual
# probability is guaranteed to be at most this value
bayesian_bound = transform.wand_upper_bound(bm25_upper_bound)
Debugging the Fusion Pipeline
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianProbabilityTransform
from bayesian_bm25.debug import FusionDebugger
transform = BayesianProbabilityTransform(alpha=0.45, beta=6.10, base_rate=0.02)
debugger = FusionDebugger(transform)
# Trace a single document through the full pipeline
trace = debugger.trace_document(
bm25_score=8.42, tf=5, doc_len_ratio=0.60,
cosine_score=0.74, doc_id="doc-42",
)
print(debugger.format_trace(trace))
# Compare two documents to see which signal drove the rank difference
trace_a = debugger.trace_document(bm25_score=8.42, tf=5, doc_len_ratio=0.60, cosine_score=0.74)
trace_b = debugger.trace_document(bm25_score=5.10, tf=2, doc_len_ratio=1.20, cosine_score=0.88)
comparison = debugger.compare(trace_a, trace_b)
print(debugger.format_comparison(comparison))
# Hierarchical fusion: AND(OR(title, body), vector, NOT(spam))
step1 = debugger.trace_fusion([0.85, 0.70], names=["title", "body"], method="prob_or")
step2 = debugger.trace_not(0.90, name="spam")
step3 = debugger.trace_fusion(
[step1.fused_probability, 0.80, step2.complement],
names=["OR(title,body)", "vector", "NOT(spam)"],
method="prob_and",
)
Evaluating Calibration Quality
import numpy as np
from bayesian_bm25 import (
expected_calibration_error, brier_score, reliability_diagram, calibration_report,
)
probabilities = np.array([0.9, 0.8, 0.3, 0.1, 0.7, 0.2])
labels = np.array([1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0])
ece = expected_calibration_error(probabilities, labels) # lower is better
bs = brier_score(probabilities, labels) # lower is better
bins = reliability_diagram(probabilities, labels, n_bins=5) # (avg_pred, avg_actual, count)
# One-call diagnostic report
report = calibration_report(probabilities, labels)
print(report.summary()) # formatted text with ECE, Brier, and reliability table
Online Learning from User Feedback
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianProbabilityTransform
transform = BayesianProbabilityTransform(alpha=1.0, beta=0.0)
# Batch warmup on historical data
transform.fit(historical_scores, historical_labels)
# Online refinement from live feedback
for score, label in feedback_stream:
transform.update(score, label, learning_rate=0.01, momentum=0.95)
# Use Polyak-averaged parameters for stable inference
alpha = transform.averaged_alpha
beta = transform.averaged_beta
Training Modes
from bayesian_bm25 import BayesianProbabilityTransform
transform = BayesianProbabilityTransform(alpha=1.0, beta=0.0)
# C1 (balanced, default): train on sigmoid likelihood
transform.fit(scores, labels, mode="balanced")
# C2 (prior-aware): train on full Bayesian posterior
transform.fit(scores, labels, mode="prior_aware", tfs=tfs, doc_len_ratios=ratios)
# C3 (prior-free): train on likelihood, inference uses prior=0.5
transform.fit(scores, labels, mode="prior_free")
Benchmarks
BEIR Hybrid Search
Evaluated on 5 BEIR datasets using the retrieve-then-evaluate protocol (top-1000 per signal, union candidates, pytrec_eval). Dense encoder: all-MiniLM-L6-v2. BM25: k1=1.2, b=0.75, Lucene variant with Snowball English stemmer.
NDCG@10
| Method | ArguAna | FiQA | NFCorpus | SciDocs | SciFact | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BM25 | 36.13 | 25.31 | 31.82 | 15.63 | 68.02 | 35.38 |
| Dense | 36.98 | 36.87 | 31.59 | 21.64 | 64.51 | 38.32 |
| Convex | 40.01 | 37.10 | 35.60 | 19.67 | 73.37 | 41.15 |
| RRF | 39.61 | 36.85 | 34.43 | 20.11 | 71.43 | 40.49 |
| Bayesian-OR | 0.06 | 25.52 | 33.46 | 15.89 | 66.95 | 28.38 |
| Bayesian-LogOdds | 37.16 | 32.93 | 35.31 | 18.57 | 72.80 | 39.35 |
| LO-Local | 39.66 | 37.19 | 34.10 | 19.51 | 73.80 | 40.85 |
| Bayesian-LO-BR | 37.16 | 32.92 | 30.99 | 18.52 | 72.27 | 38.37 |
| Bayesian-Balanced | 37.27 | 40.58 | 35.73 | 21.42 | 72.47 | 41.50 |
| Balanced-Mix | 37.29 | 40.66 | 35.70 | 21.53 | 72.33 | 41.50 |
| Balanced-Elbow | 37.29 | 40.56 | 35.76 | 21.42 | 72.46 | 41.50 |
| Gated-ReLU | 35.16 | 27.54 | 32.45 | 17.08 | 69.01 | 36.25 |
| Gated-Swish | 36.20 | 27.39 | 28.66 | 16.82 | 68.61 | 35.54 |
| Attention | 37.05 | 38.86 | 34.39 | 21.05 | 70.51 | 40.37 |
| Attn-NR | 37.22 | 40.53 | 35.42 | 21.91 | 73.24 | 41.67 |
| Attn-NR-CV | 37.23 | 40.51 | 35.37 | 21.97 | 72.57 | 41.53 |
| MultiField | 7.41 | -- | 31.16 | 15.68 | 60.06 | 28.58* |
| MF-Balanced | 38.40 | -- | 34.51 | 20.93 | 66.83 | 40.17* |
MAP@10
| Method | ArguAna | FiQA | NFCorpus | SciDocs | SciFact | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BM25 | 23.84 | 19.10 | 11.76 | 9.15 | 63.38 | 25.45 |
| Dense | 24.46 | 29.14 | 11.05 | 12.94 | 59.59 | 27.44 |
| Convex | 26.76 | 29.21 | 13.46 | 11.79 | 69.12 | 30.07 |
| RRF | 26.30 | 28.85 | 12.84 | 11.98 | 66.58 | 29.31 |
| Bayesian-OR | 0.03 | 19.09 | 12.41 | 9.19 | 61.70 | 20.49 |
| Bayesian-LogOdds | 24.54 | 25.58 | 13.40 | 11.02 | 68.31 | 28.57 |
| LO-Local | 26.43 | 29.32 | 12.31 | 11.70 | 69.29 | 29.81 |
| Bayesian-LO-BR | 24.54 | 25.58 | 11.50 | 10.99 | 67.83 | 28.09 |
| Bayesian-Balanced | 24.61 | 32.73 | 13.80 | 12.85 | 68.03 | 30.40 |
| Balanced-Mix | 24.62 | 32.77 | 13.79 | 12.93 | 67.84 | 30.39 |
| Balanced-Elbow | 24.62 | 32.72 | 13.80 | 12.85 | 68.02 | 30.40 |
| Gated-ReLU | 22.95 | 21.00 | 11.67 | 10.02 | 64.10 | 25.95 |
| Gated-Swish | 23.86 | 20.88 | 10.23 | 9.85 | 63.80 | 25.73 |
| Attention | 24.49 | 30.96 | 12.68 | 12.60 | 65.92 | 29.33 |
| Attn-NR | 24.57 | 32.62 | 13.40 | 13.22 | 68.91 | 30.54 |
| Attn-NR-CV | 24.58 | 32.58 | 13.39 | 13.24 | 68.05 | 30.37 |
| MultiField | 4.76 | -- | 11.45 | 9.04 | 55.34 | 20.15* |
| MF-Balanced | 25.45 | -- | 13.04 | 12.57 | 63.21 | 28.57* |
Recall@10
| Method | ArguAna | FiQA | NFCorpus | SciDocs | SciFact | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BM25 | 75.04 | 31.98 | 14.46 | 16.34 | 80.78 | 43.72 |
| Dense | 76.53 | 44.13 | 15.50 | 23.09 | 78.33 | 47.52 |
| Convex | 81.65 | 45.04 | 17.06 | 20.62 | 84.89 | 49.85 |
| RRF | 81.65 | 45.03 | 16.87 | 21.15 | 84.76 | 49.89 |
| Bayesian-OR | 0.14 | 32.71 | 15.98 | 16.76 | 81.37 | 29.39 |
| Bayesian-LogOdds | 77.03 | 40.67 | 17.24 | 19.40 | 84.96 | 47.86 |
| LO-Local | 81.37 | 45.22 | 16.29 | 20.42 | 86.22 | 49.90 |
| Bayesian-LO-BR | 77.03 | 40.67 | 15.01 | 19.32 | 84.29 | 47.27 |
| Bayesian-Balanced | 77.31 | 47.61 | 17.23 | 22.61 | 84.83 | 49.92 |
| Balanced-Mix | 77.38 | 47.61 | 17.26 | 22.73 | 84.83 | 49.96 |
| Balanced-Elbow | 77.38 | 47.56 | 17.24 | 22.63 | 84.83 | 49.93 |
| Gated-ReLU | 74.04 | 34.39 | 16.03 | 17.79 | 82.58 | 44.97 |
| Gated-Swish | 75.39 | 34.21 | 13.88 | 17.43 | 81.91 | 44.56 |
| Attention | 76.74 | 46.60 | 17.10 | 22.23 | 83.04 | 49.14 |
| Attn-NR | 77.24 | 47.43 | 17.05 | 23.24 | 84.69 | 49.93 |
| Attn-NR-CV | 77.24 | 47.50 | 17.04 | 23.39 | 84.71 | 49.98 |
| MultiField | 16.43 | -- | 14.64 | 16.68 | 72.87 | 30.16* |
| MF-Balanced | 79.30 | -- | 16.85 | 22.03 | 76.63 | 48.70* |
*MultiField/MF-Balanced average over 4 datasets (FiQA corpus lacks title field).
All methods above are zero-shot (no relevance labels required). With --tune, additional supervised methods are evaluated:
| Method | ArguAna | FiQA | NFCorpus | SciDocs | SciFact | NDCG@10 Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balanced-Tuned | 37.29 | 40.49 | 35.65 | 22.03 | 72.70 | 41.63 |
| Hybrid-AND-Tuned | 37.13 | 28.37 | 34.44 | 16.82 | 69.34 | 37.22 |
| Bayesian-Tuned | 0.79 | 24.76 | 32.11 | 15.68 | 67.67 | 28.20 |
Delta vs BM25 (NDCG@10)
| Method | Type | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| Attn-NR | zero-shot | +6.28 |
| Balanced-Tuned | trained | +6.26 |
| Attn-NR-CV | zero-shot | +6.14 |
| Balanced-Elbow | zero-shot | +6.12 |
| Balanced-Mix | zero-shot | +6.12 |
| Bayesian-Balanced | zero-shot | +6.11 |
| Convex | zero-shot | +5.76 |
| LO-Local | zero-shot | +5.47 |
| RRF | zero-shot | +5.11 |
| Attention | zero-shot | +4.99 |
| Bayesian-LogOdds | zero-shot | +3.97 |
| Bayesian-LO-BR | zero-shot | +2.99 |
| Dense | zero-shot | +2.94 |
| MF-Balanced | zero-shot | +2.27* |
| Hybrid-AND-Tuned | trained | +1.84 |
| Gated-ReLU | zero-shot | +0.87 |
| Gated-Swish | zero-shot | +0.16 |
*MF-Balanced delta computed over 4 datasets (FiQA corpus lacks title field).
Method descriptions:
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| BM25 | Sparse retrieval via bm25s (Lucene variant) |
| Dense | Cosine similarity via sentence-transformers |
| Convex | w * dense_norm + (1-w) * bm25_norm, w=0.5 |
| RRF | Reciprocal Rank Fusion, sum(1/(k + rank)), k=60 |
| Bayesian-OR | Bayesian BM25 probs + cosine probs via prob_or |
| Bayesian-LogOdds | Bayesian BM25 probs to logit, dense calibrated via logit = alpha * (sim - median), combined |
| LO-Local | Both raw BM25 and dense calibrated symmetrically via logit = alpha * (score - median), combined |
| Bayesian-LO-BR | Bayesian-LogOdds with base rate prior |
| Bayesian-Balanced | balanced_log_odds_fusion: Bayesian BM25 probs and dense sims to logit space, min-max normalize each, combine with equal weights |
| Balanced-Mix | Bayesian-Balanced with mixture-model base rate estimation |
| Balanced-Elbow | Bayesian-Balanced with elbow-detection base rate estimation |
| Gated-ReLU | log_odds_conjunction with ReLU gating in logit space (Paper 2, Theorem 6.5.3) |
| Gated-Swish | log_odds_conjunction with Swish gating in logit space (Paper 2, Theorem 6.7.4) |
| Attention | Query-dependent signal weighting via AttentionLogOddsWeights (Paper 2, Section 8) |
| Attn-NR | Attention with per-signal logit normalization (normalize=True) and 7 features (sparse + dense + cross-signal) |
| Attn-NR-CV | Attn-NR with 5-fold cross-validation (train/test split per query) |
| MultiField | MultiFieldScorer (title + body) with log_odds_conjunction, sparse-only |
| MF-Balanced | MultiField probs + dense via balanced_log_odds_fusion |
| Balanced-Tuned | Bayesian-Balanced + supervised BayesianProbabilityTransform.fit() + grid search over base_rate and fusion_weight |
| Hybrid-AND-Tuned | log_odds_conjunction of Bayesian BM25 and dense probs with tuned alpha |
| Bayesian-Tuned | Sparse-only Bayesian BM25 with tuned alpha, beta, and base_rate (no dense signal) |
Why include underperforming methods? The tables above deliberately include methods that underperform BM25. Each failure mode is informative:
- Bayesian-OR (NDCG@10 avg 28.38) — Probabilistic OR assumes signal independence and catastrophically fails on ArguAna (0.06%). This demonstrates why the log-odds conjunction framework (Paper 2, Section 4) is needed: naive probability combination without logit-space calibration collapses when signal distributions differ.
- Gated-ReLU / Gated-Swish (36.25 / 35.54) — Sparse gating (Paper 2, Theorems 6.5.3 / 6.7.4) is too aggressive for the BEIR hybrid fusion task. ReLU zeros out negative logits entirely, discarding useful weak signals; Swish softens the gate but still suppresses too much. These gates are designed for high-dimensional signal spaces where most inputs are noise — in a two-signal (sparse + dense) setting, there is no noise to suppress.
- MultiField (28.58 over 4 datasets) — Sparse-only multi-field search loses to concatenated BM25 because field separation fragments term statistics (smaller per-field document frequency, shorter effective document lengths). However, MF-Balanced (40.17) recovers most of the gap by fusing with dense embeddings, confirming that field-level BM25 signals are complementary to dense vectors even when they are individually weaker.
Reproduce:
# Zero-shot (18 methods)
python benchmarks/hybrid_beir.py -d <beir-data-dir>
# With tuning (auto-estimation + supervised learning + grid search)
python benchmarks/hybrid_beir.py -d <beir-data-dir> --tune
# Download BEIR datasets automatically
python benchmarks/hybrid_beir.py -d <beir-data-dir> --download
Requires pip install bayesian-bm25[scorer] sentence-transformers pytrec-eval-0.5 PyStemmer.
Sparse Retrieval
Evaluated on BEIR datasets (NFCorpus, SciFact) with k1=1.2, b=0.75, Lucene BM25. Queries are split 50/50 for training and evaluation. "Batch fit" uses gradient descent on training labels; all other Bayesian methods are unsupervised.
Ranking Quality
Base rate prior is a monotonic transform — it does not change document ordering.
| Method | NFCorpus NDCG@10 | NFCorpus MAP | SciFact NDCG@10 | SciFact MAP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raw BM25 | 0.5023 | 0.4395 | 0.5900 | 0.5426 |
| Bayesian (auto) | 0.5050 | 0.4403 | 0.5791 | 0.5283 |
| Bayesian (auto) + base rate | 0.5050 | 0.4403 | 0.5791 | 0.5283 |
| Bayesian (batch fit) | 0.5041 | 0.4400 | 0.5826 | 0.5305 |
| Bayesian (batch fit) + base rate | 0.5041 | 0.4400 | 0.5826 | 0.5305 |
| Platt scaling | 0.0229 | 0.0165 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Min-max normalization | 0.5023 | 0.4395 | 0.5900 | 0.5426 |
| Batch fit (prior-aware, C2) | 0.5066 | 0.4424 | 0.5776 | 0.5236 |
| Batch fit (prior-free, C3) | 0.5023 | 0.4395 | 0.5880 | 0.5389 |
Probability Calibration
Expected Calibration Error (ECE) and Brier score. Lower is better.
| Method | NFCorpus ECE | NFCorpus Brier | SciFact ECE | SciFact Brier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bayesian (no base rate) | 0.6519 | 0.4667 | 0.7989 | 0.6635 |
| Bayesian (base_rate=auto) | 0.1461 (-77.6%) | 0.0619 | 0.2577 (-67.7%) | 0.1308 |
| Bayesian (base_rate=0.001) | 0.0081 (-98.8%) | 0.0114 | 0.0354 (-95.6%) | 0.0157 |
| Batch fit (no base rate) | 0.0093 (-98.6%) | 0.0114 | 0.0103 (-98.7%) | 0.0051 |
| Batch fit + base_rate=auto | 0.0085 (-98.7%) | 0.0096 | 0.0021 (-99.7%) | 0.0013 |
| Platt scaling | 0.0186 (-97.1%) | 0.0101 | 0.0188 (-97.7%) | 0.0007 |
| Min-max normalization | 0.0189 (-97.1%) | 0.0105 | 0.0156 (-98.0%) | 0.0009 |
| Batch fit (prior-aware, C2) | 0.0892 (-86.3%) | 0.0439 | 0.1427 (-82.1%) | 0.0802 |
| Batch fit (prior-free, C3) | 0.0029 (-99.6%) | 0.0099 | 0.0058 (-99.3%) | 0.0030 |
Threshold Transfer
F1 scores using the best threshold found on training queries, applied to evaluation queries. Smaller gap indicates better generalization.
| Method | NFCorpus Train F1 | NFCorpus Test F1 | SciFact Train F1 | SciFact Test F1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bayesian (no base rate) | 0.1607 | 0.1511 | 0.3374 | 0.2800 |
| Batch fit (no base rate) | 0.1577 | 0.1405 | 0.2358 | 0.2294 |
| Batch fit + base_rate=auto | 0.1559 | 0.1403 | 0.3316 | 0.3341 |
| Platt scaling | 0.0219 | 0.0193 | 0.0005 | 0.0005 |
| Min-max normalization | 0.1796 | 0.1751 | 0.3526 | 0.3486 |
| Batch fit (prior-aware, C2) | 0.1657 | 0.1539 | 0.3370 | 0.3275 |
| Batch fit (prior-free, C3) | 0.1808 | 0.1758 | 0.2836 | 0.2852 |
Reproduce with python benchmarks/base_rate.py (requires pip install bayesian-bm25[bench]). The base rate benchmark also includes Platt scaling, min-max normalization, and prior-aware/prior-free training mode comparisons.
Additional benchmarks (no external datasets required):
python benchmarks/learnable_weights.py— learnable weight recovery, fusion quality, online convergence, and timingpython benchmarks/weighted_fusion.py— weighted vs uniform log-odds fusion across noise scenariospython benchmarks/wand_upper_bound.py— WAND upper bound tightness and skip rate analysis
Citation
If you use this work, please cite the following papers:
@preprint{Jeong2026BayesianBM25,
author = {Jeong, Jaepil},
title = {Bayesian {BM25}: {A} Probabilistic Framework for Hybrid Text
and Vector Search},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.18414940},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18414940}
}
@preprint{Jeong2026BayesianNeural,
author = {Jeong, Jaepil},
title = {From {Bayesian} Inference to Neural Computation: The Analytical
Emergence of Neural Network Structure from Probabilistic
Relevance Estimation},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.18512411},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18512411}
}
License
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
Copyright (c) 2023-2026 Cognica, Inc.
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