Indian buffet process

The Indian Buffet Process (IBP) is a generative model for random "feature allocations" (a "feature allocation" is analogous to a clustering except a given datum can belong to more than one cluster). So while the Chinese Restaurant Process describes a generative model for dividing N integers (customers) into K partitions (table assignments), the IBP describes a generative model for dividing N integers into K subsets, where each integer can occur in an arbitrary number of subsets. These subsets are known as "features" and the entire set is known as a "feature allocation". Note: the IBP has a more formal definition in probability theory where it is known as the marginalized distribution of a Beta process.