A Hybrid Structure Learning Algorithm for Bayesian Network Using Experts’ Knowledge

Bayesian network structure learning from data has been proved to be a NP-hard (Non-deterministic Polynomial-hard) problem. An effective method of improving the accuracy of Bayesian network structure is using experts’ knowledge instead of only using data. Some experts’ knowledge (named here explicit knowledge) can make the causal relationship between nodes in Bayesian Networks (BN) structure clear, while the others (named here vague knowledge) cannot. In the previous algorithms for BN structure learning, only the explicit knowledge was used, but the vague knowledge, which was ignored, is also valuable and often exists in the real world. Therefore we propose a new method of using more comprehensive experts’ knowledge based on hybrid structure learning algorithm, a kind of two-stage algorithm. Two types of experts’ knowledge are defined and incorporated into the hybrid algorithm. We formulate rules to generate better initial network structure and improve the scoring function. Furthermore, we take expert level difference and opinion conflict into account. Experimental results show that our proposed method can improve the structure learning performance.