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A Bayesian approach to learning causal networks

Published: 18 August 1995 Publication History

Abstract

Whereas acausal Bayesian networks represent probabilistic independence, causal Bayesian networks represent causal relationships. In this paper, we examine Bayesian methods for learning both types of networks. Bayesian methods for learning acausal networks are fairly well developed. These methods often employ assumptions to facilitate the construction of priors, including the assumptions of parameter independence, parameter modularity, and likelihood equivalence. We show that although these assumptions also can be appropriate for learning causal networks, we need additional assumptions in order to learn causal networks. We introduce two sufficient assumptions, called mechanism independence and component independence. We show that these new assumptions, when combined with parameter independence, parameter modularity, and likelihood equivalence, allow us to apply methods for learning acausal networks to learn causal networks.

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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings
UAI'95: Proceedings of the Eleventh conference on Uncertainty in artificial intelligence
August 1995
590 pages
ISBN:1558603859

Sponsors

  • Rockwell Science Center: Rockwell Science Center
  • Lumina Decision Systems: Lumina Decision Systems, Inc.

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Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.

San Francisco, CA, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 August 1995

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  • (2022)Active Bayesian causal inferenceProceedings of the 36th International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems10.5555/3600270.3601453(16261-16275)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2022
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  • (2008)A clustering-based approach for inferring recurrent neural networks as gene regulatory networksNeurocomputing10.1016/j.neucom.2007.07.02371:4-6(600-610)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2008
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