Exploiting Symmetry of Independence in d-Separation

Cory J. Butz, Andre E. dos Santos, Jhonatan Oliveira, Anders Læsø Madsen

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/conference proceedingArticle in proceedingResearchpeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, we exploit the symmetry of independence in the implementation of d-separation. We show that it can matter whether the search is conducted from start to goal or vice versa. Analysis reveals it is preferable to approach observed v-structure nodes from the bottom. Hence, a measure, called depth, is suggested to decide whether the search should run from start to goal or from goal to start. One salient feature is that depth can be computed during a pruning optimization step widely implemented. An empirical comparison is conducted against a clever implementation of d-separation. The experimental results are promising in two aspects. The effectiveness of our method increases with network size, as well as with the amount of observed evidence, culminating with an average time savings of 9% in the 9 largest BNs used in our experiments.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdvances in Artificial Intelligence - 32nd Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Canadian AI 2019, Proceedings
EditorsMarie-Jean Meurs, Frank Rudzicz
Number of pages13
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherSpringer
Publication date2019
Pages42-54
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-18304-2
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-18305-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
EventCanadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence - Kingston, Canada
Duration: 28 May 201931 May 2019

Conference

ConferenceCanadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityKingston
Period28/05/201931/05/2019
SeriesLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume11489
ISSN0302-9743

Keywords

  • Bayesian networks
  • Conditional independence
  • Symmetry inference axiom
  • d-separation

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