Lda Convergence Monitoring And Iteration

---
name: lda-convergence-monitoring-and-iteration
description: Use when after configuring LDA hyperparameters (alpha, beta, number of topics, iteration budget) and loading a preprocessed bag-of-fragments corpus with neutral losses extracted and noise filtered, initiate LDA training and apply convergence monitoring to determine when topic-fragment probability.
license: CC-BY-4.0
metadata:
  edam_operation: http://edamontology.org/operation_3800
  edam_topics:
  - http://edamontology.org/topic_0121
  - http://edamontology.org/topic_3372
  tools:
  - MS2LDA
  - Python
  - Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
  techniques:
  - LC-MS
derived_from:
- doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608041113
  title: MS2LDA
evidence_spans:
- '**MS2LDA** applies *probabilistic topic modeling*, originally developed for natural language processing (NLP), to **tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)** data.'
- Invoke the main script `ms2lda_runfull.py` with your arguments
- configure the Python environment (set `PYTHONPATH`, activate conda, etc.)
- Configure the Python environment (set `PYTHONPATH`, activate conda, etc.)
claims: []
provenance:
  collection: https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-skill/collection/metabolomics/v2
  assembled_by: scripts/collect_metabolomics_collection.py
  sources:
  - build: coll_ms2lda_cq
    doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608041113
    title: MS2LDA
  dedup_kept_from: coll_ms2lda_cq
schema_version: 0.2.0
attribution:
  generator: AgenticScienceBuilder
  original_doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608041113
  all_source_dois:
  - 10.1073/pnas.1608041113
  zenodo_doi: 10.5281/zenodo.20794027
  curators: []
  promoter: Louis-Félix Nothias
  sponsor: CNRS & Université Côte d'Azur
---

# LDA Convergence Monitoring and Iteration

## Summary

Monitor Latent Dirichlet Allocation convergence during training on mass spectrometry spectral corpora by tracking likelihood across iterations, and halt when the model reaches stable topic-fragment distributions. This skill ensures Mass2Motifs are reliably inferred without over- or under-training.

## When to use

After configuring LDA hyperparameters (alpha, beta, number of topics, iteration budget) and loading a preprocessed bag-of-fragments corpus with neutral losses extracted and noise filtered, initiate LDA training and apply convergence monitoring to determine when topic-fragment probability distributions have stabilized, signaling that the motif inference is complete and reliable.

## When NOT to use

- Input spectral corpus has not been preprocessed (fragments not extracted, neutral losses not computed, noise not filtered).
- LDA hyperparameters have not been tuned or validated; convergence monitoring cannot compensate for poor alpha/beta choices.
- Iteration budget is very small (< 50 iterations); convergence signals will be unreliable on small datasets or under-parameterized models.

## Inputs

- preprocessed mass spectrometry spectral corpus in bag-of-fragments format with neutral losses extracted
- LDA hyperparameter configuration (alpha, beta, number of topics/Mass2Motifs, iteration count)

## Outputs

- inferred Mass2Motifs as topic-fragment probability distributions
- document-motif loadings (spectrum × motif matrix)
- likelihood trajectory (iteration × log-likelihood vector)
- serialized motif set in JSON format

## How to apply

Execute LDA training via the MS2LDA modeling module on the preprocessed spectral dataset for the configured iteration count. At each iteration, compute and record the log-likelihood (or perplexity) of the spectral corpus under the current topic model. Plot likelihood values across iterations and identify convergence as a plateau region where successive likelihood differences fall below a threshold (typically <0.1% change over 5–10 iterations). Once convergence is reached, halt training, extract the inferred Mass2Motif distributions (topic-fragment probability pairs) and document-motif loadings, and serialize results to JSON. If convergence is not reached within the budget, either increase the iteration count or re-examine data preprocessing and hyperparameter choices.

## Related tools

- **Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)** (Core probabilistic topic model used to infer Mass2Motifs from fragment-loss distributions)
- **MS2LDA** (Python module that implements LDA training, likelihood tracking, and Mass2Motif extraction for tandem mass spectrometry data) — https://github.com/vdhooftcompmet/MS2LDA
- **Python** (Programming language for configuring LDA hyperparameters and executing training with convergence monitoring)

## Evaluation signals

- Likelihood curve is monotonically non-decreasing (or non-increasing for negative log-likelihood) and exhibits a clear plateau region.
- Successive likelihood differences stabilize below 0.1% threshold for at least 5 consecutive iterations.
- Extracted Mass2Motif distributions sum to 1.0 per topic and contain fragment-loss pairs with non-negative probabilities.
- Document-motif loadings (spectrum × motif matrix) are non-negative and have per-spectrum sums close to 1.0 or the corpus-level expected value.
- Convergence is reached within the configured iteration budget; if not, model is under-trained or hyperparameters are poorly chosen.

## Limitations

- Convergence monitoring is sensitive to the choice of likelihood threshold and plateau window size; no universally optimal threshold is specified in the article or README.
- LDA is unsupervised and does not guarantee that inferred motifs are biochemically meaningful; convergence only ensures mathematical stability, not validity.
- Preprocessing quality (fragment extraction, noise filtering, neutral loss identification) directly affects convergence speed and motif quality; poor preprocessing can delay or obscure convergence signals.
- LDA can be computationally expensive on very large spectral corpora (>100k spectra); convergence monitoring must be paired with checkpointing to avoid loss of intermediate results on long runs.

## Evidence

- [other] Execute LDA training for the specified number of iterations, monitoring convergence via likelihood tracking.: "Execute LDA training for the specified number of iterations, monitoring convergence via likelihood tracking."
- [other] MS2LDA applies Latent Dirichlet Allocation to infer which motifs are most likely to explain the observed fragmentation patterns in mass spectrometry data.: "MS2LDA applies Latent Dirichlet Allocation to infer which motifs are most likely to explain the observed fragmentation patterns in mass spectrometry data."
- [methods] Apply LDA to the processed spectra: "Apply LDA to the processed spectra"
- [methods] Learn Mass2Motifs that describe recurring fragmentation patterns: "Learn Mass2Motifs that describe recurring fragmentation patterns"
- [other] Extract inferred Mass2Motifs (topic-fragment probability distributions) and document-motif loadings, then serialize to JSON format.: "Extract inferred Mass2Motifs (topic-fragment probability distributions) and document-motif loadings, then serialize to JSON format."