Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a thorough introduction to the formal foundations and practical applications of Bayesian networks. It provides an extensive discussion of techniques for building Bayesian networks that model real-world situations, including techniques for synthesizing models from design, learning models from data, and debugging models using sensitivity analysis.
Trade Review'… both practical and advanced … The first five chapters are sufficient for students and practitioners to gain the necessary knowledge in order to build Bayesian networks for moderately sized applications with the aid of a software tool … All major inference methods are covered in later chapters which allow researchers and software developers to implement their own software systems tailored to their needs … It is a comprehensive book that can be used for self study by students and newcomers to the field or as a companion for courses on probabilistic reasoning. Experienced researchers may also find deeper information on some topics. In my opinion, the book should definitely be [on] the bookshelf of everyone who teaches Bayesian networks and builds probabilistic reasoning agents.' Artificial Intelligence
'[This] book will make an excellent textbook; it covers topics suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses. It will also help practitioners get a firm grasp of the fundamentals of modeling and inference with BNs, as well as some recent advances.' ACM Computing Reviews
Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Propositional logic; 3. Probability calculus; 4. Bayesian networks; 5. Building Bayesian networks; 6. Inference by variable elimination; 7. Inference by factor elimination; 8. Inference by conditioning; 9. Models for graph decomposition; 10. Most likely instantiations; 11. The complexity of probabilistic inference; 12. Compiling Bayesian networks; 13. Inference with local structure; 14. Approximate inference by belief propagation; 15. Approximate inference by stochastic sampling; 16. Sensitivity analysis; 17. Learning: the maximum likelihood approach; 18. Learning: the Bayesian approach; Appendix A: notation; Appendix B: concepts from information theory; Appendix C: fixed point iterative methods; Appendix D: constrained optimization.
