Artificial intelligence and expert systems have seen a great deal of research in recent years, much of which has been devoted to methods for incorporating uncertainty into models. This book is devoted to providing a thorough and up-to-date survey of this field for researchers and students.

Probabilistic expert systems are graphical networks which support the modeling of uncertainty and decisions in large complex domains, while retaining ease of calculation. Building on original research by the authors, this book gives a thorough and rigorous mathematical treatment of the underlying ideas, structures, and algorithms. The book will be of interest to researchers in both artificial intelligence and statistics, who desire an introduction to this fascinating and rapidly developing field. The book, winner of the DeGroot Prize 2002, the only book prize in the field of statistics, is new in paperback.

Addresses the use probability theory as a tool for designing with and implementing uncertainity reasoning. Provides many concrete algorithms, explores techniques for solving multimembership classification problems not based directly on causal networks, and offers practical recommendations, matching specific methods with sample expert systems.

Probabilistic Expert Systems emphasizes the basic computational principles that make probabilistic reasoning feasible in expert systems. The key to computation in these systems is the modularity of the probabilistic model. Shafer describes and compares the principal architectures for exploiting this modularity in the computation of prior and posterior probabilities. He also indicates how these similar yet different architectures apply to a wide variety of other problems of recursive computation in applied mathematics and operations research. The field of probabilistic expert systems has continued to flourish since the author delivered his lectures on the topic in June 1992, but the understanding of join-tree architectures has remained missing from the literature. This monograph fills this void by providing an analysis of join-tree methods for the computation of prior and posterior probabilities in belief nets. These methods, pioneered in the mid to late 1980s, continue to be central to the theory and practice of probabilistic expert systems. In addition to purely probabilistic expert systems, join-tree methods are also used in expert systems based on Dempster-Shafer belief functions or on possibility measures. Variations are also used for computation in relational databases, in linear optimization, and in constraint satisfaction. This book describes probabilistic expert systems in a more rigorous and focused way than existing literature, and provides an annotated bibliography that includes pointers to conferences and software. Also included are exercises that will help the reader begin to explore the problem of generalizing from probability to broader domains of recursive computation.

Uncertain Information Processing in Expert Systems systematically and critically examines probabilistic and rule-based (compositional, MYCIN-like) systems, the two most important families of expert systems dealing with uncertainty. The book features a detailed introduction to probabilistic systems (including methods using graphical models and methods of knowledge integration), an analysis of compositional systems based on algebraic considerations, an application of graphical models, and the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence and its use in expert systems. The book will be useful to anyone working in artificial intelligence, statistical computing, symbolic logic, and expert systems.

Probabilistic expert systems are graphical networks which support the modeling of uncertainty and decisions in large complex domains, while retaining ease of calculation. Building on original research by the authors, this book gives a thorough and rigorous mathematical treatment of the underlying ideas, structures, and algorithms. The book will be of interest to researchers in both artificial intelligence and statistics, who desire an introduction to this fascinating and rapidly developing field. The book, winner of the DeGroot Prize 2002, the only book prize in the field of statistics, is new in paperback.

Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems is a complete and accessible account of the theoretical foundations and computational methods that underlie plausible reasoning under uncertainty. The author provides a coherent explication of probability as a language for reasoning with partial belief and offers a unifying perspective on other AI approaches to uncertainty, such as the Dempster-Shafer formalism, truth maintenance systems, and nonmonotonic logic. The author distinguishes syntactic and semantic approaches to uncertainty--and offers techniques, based on belief networks, that provide a mechanism for making semantics-based systems operational. Specifically, network-propagation techniques serve as a mechanism for combining the theoretical coherence of probability theory with modern demands of reasoning-systems technology: modular declarative inputs, conceptually meaningful inferences, and parallel distributed computation. Application areas include diagnosis, forecasting, image interpretation, multi-sensor fusion, decision support systems, plan recognition, planning, speech recognition--in short, almost every task requiring that conclusions be drawn from uncertain clues and incomplete information. Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems will be of special interest to scholars and researchers in AI, decision theory, statistics, logic, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and the management sciences. Professionals in the areas of knowledge-based systems, operations research, engineering, and statistics will find theoretical and computational tools of immediate practical use. The book can also be used as an excellent text for graduate-level courses in AI, operations research, or applied probability.