Re: [UAI] Bayes net structure learning using single link look-ahead.

From: Marco Valtorta (mgv@cse.sc.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 22 2001 - 13:11:28 PDT

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    Dear Robert:

    On Fri, 6 Apr 2001 R.G.Cowell@city.ac.uk wrote:

    > Several Bayes net structure learning algorithms work incrementally by
    > testing the addition of a single link to a current model, seeing if
    > it improves some score, such as marginal likelihood, and then
    > selecting the link which increases the score the most. I remember that
    > there were some papers a few years back pointing out that this
    > single-link look-ahead search fails for some special situations and
    > the simultaneous addition of two links should be considered instead,
    > but I cannot recall any details of the papers.
    >
    > I would be grateful if anyone can provide references to papers which
    > deal with this issue.

    A paper that deals with this issue is:
    David Madigan, Steen A. Andersson, Michael D. Perlman, and Chris T.
    Volinsky. "Bayesian Model Averaging and Model Selection for
    Markov Equivalence Classes of Acyclic Digraphs."
    _Communications in Statistics (Theory and Methods)_, 25, 11 (1996), pp.
    2493-2512. See in particular p.7 of the online version:
    http://www.stat.washington.edu/bayes/PAPERS/dstarbma.ps. The example
    given on that page shows how one cannot move from a V-structure on three
    nodes to a different V structure on the same three nodes by changing only
    one edge. (This seems obvious.) It is claimed on the same page that
    changing one or two edges at a time overcomes this problem.

    > Thanks in advance.

    You are welcome.

    >
    > Robert Cowell
    > Department of Actuarial Science and Statistics
    > City University
    > Northampton Square
    > London EC1V 0HB
    >
    > tel: (44) 020 7477 - 8454
    > fax (44) 020 7477 - 8838
    > www: http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/~rgc
    >

                                    Marco

    Marco Valtorta Associate Professor
    Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering mgv@cse.sc.edu
    University of South Carolina tel: (1)(803)777-4641 fax: -3767
    Columbia, SC 29208, U.S.A. http://www.cse.sc.edu/~mgv/ tlx: 805038 USC
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