In this first edition book, methods are discussed for doing inference in Bayesian networks and inference diagrams. Hundreds of examples and problems allow readers to grasp the information. Some of the topics discussed include Pearl's message passing algorithm, Parameter Learning: 2 Alternatives, Parameter Learning r Alternatives, Bayesian Structure Learning, and Constraint-Based Learning. For expert systems developers and decision theorists.

Explains the material step-by-step starting from meaningful examples Steps detailed with R code in the spirit of reproducible research Real world data analyses from a Science paper reproduced and explained in detail Examples span a variety of fields across social and life sciences Overview of available software in and outside R

This volume contains a revised collection of papers originally presented at the Fifth International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics in 1995. The topics represented in this volume are diverse, and include natural language application causality and graphical models, classification, learning, knowledge discovery, and exploratory data analysis. The chapters illustrate the rich possibilities for interdisciplinary study at the interface of artificial intelligence and statistics. The chapters vary in the background that they assume, but moderate familiarity with techniques of artificial intelligence and statistics is desirable in most cases.

Bayesian inference networks, a synthesis of statistics and expert systems, have advanced reasoning under uncertainty in medicine, business, and social sciences. This innovative volume is the first comprehensive treatment exploring how they can be applied to design and analyze innovative educational assessments. Part I develops Bayes nets’ foundations in assessment, statistics, and graph theory, and works through the real-time updating algorithm. Part II addresses parametric forms for use with assessment, model-checking techniques, and estimation with the EM algorithm and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). A unique feature is the volume’s grounding in Evidence-Centered Design (ECD) framework for assessment design. This “design forward” approach enables designers to take full advantage of Bayes nets’ modularity and ability to model complex evidentiary relationships that arise from performance in interactive, technology-rich assessments such as simulations. Part III describes ECD, situates Bayes nets as an integral component of a principled design process, and illustrates the ideas with an in-depth look at the BioMass project: An interactive, standards-based, web-delivered demonstration assessment of science inquiry in genetics. This book is both a resource for professionals interested in assessment and advanced students. Its clear exposition, worked-through numerical examples, and demonstrations from real and didactic applications provide invaluable illustrations of how to use Bayes nets in educational assessment. Exercises follow each chapter, and the online companion site provides a glossary, data sets and problem setups, and links to computational resources.

This 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. It also treats exact and approximate inference algorithms at both theoretical and practical levels. The author assumes very little background on the covered subjects, supplying in-depth discussions for theoretically inclined readers and enough practical details to provide an algorithmic cookbook for the system developer.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Advanced Methodologies for Bayesian Networks, AMBN 2015, held in Yokohama, Japan, in November 2015. The 18 revised full papers and 6 invited abstracts presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. In the International Workshop on Advanced Methodologies for Bayesian Networks (AMBN), the researchers explore methodologies for enhancing the effectiveness of graphical models including modeling, reasoning, model selection, logic-probability relations, and causality. The exploration of methodologies is complemented discussions of practical considerations for applying graphical models in real world settings, covering concerns like scalability, incremental learning, parallelization, and so on.

Artificial "neural networks" are widely used as flexible models for classification and regression applications, but questions remain about how the power of these models can be safely exploited when training data is limited. This book demonstrates how Bayesian methods allow complex neural network models to be used without fear of the "overfitting" that can occur with traditional training methods. Insight into the nature of these complex Bayesian models is provided by a theoretical investigation of the priors over functions that underlie them. A practical implementation of Bayesian neural network learning using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods is also described, and software for it is freely available over the Internet. Presupposing only basic knowledge of probability and statistics, this book should be of interest to researchers in statistics, engineering, and artificial intelligence.