# Implementation of a blocked Gibbs sampler for a mixture model with a Dirichlet-process prior

I am trying to understand and implement the blocked Gibbs sampler described on page 552 in Bayesian Data Analysis by Gelman et al. in the context of using a Dirichlet process as a prior in a mixture model. The three steps are as follows:

1. Update $$S_i \in \{1, \dots, N\}$$ (cluster allocations) by multinomial sampling.
2. Update the stick-breaking weight $$V_c$$, $$c = 1, \dots, N - 1$$, from a suitable beta.
3. Update $$\theta_c^*$$, $$c = 1, \dots, N$$ (cluster parameters), exactly as in the finite mixture model, with the parameters for unoccupied clusters with $$n_c = 0$$ sampled from the prior $$P_0$$.

The first two steps are more or less clear. The third one, however, is not so much, and I would appreciate if someone could explain the process. How exactly are the parameters updated?

For more context, if needed, I assume a Gaussian distribution for the data with an unknown mean and an unknown precision (hence, $$\theta_i^* = (\mu_i, \tau_i)$$) and use a Gaussian–gamma distribution as a conjugate prior (which is $$P_0$$).

• Does this article help? There is a section about collapsed Gibbs sampling which is another term for blocked Gibbs sampling. You can also check Yee Whye Teh's implementation of DP here. Sep 3, 2020 at 20:07
• Thank you. I am specifically interested in the one described in the book on page 552.
– Ivan
Sep 6, 2020 at 9:11