Evidence Absorption and Propagation through Evidence Reversals

Ross D. Shachter

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arXiv · 1304.1525

Evidence Absorption and Propagation through Evidence Reversals

Ross D. Shachter

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Abstract

The arc reversal/node reduction approach to probabilistic inference is extended to include the case of instantiated evidence by an operation called "evidence reversal." This not only provides a technique for computing posterior joint distributions on general belief networks, but also provides insight into the methods of Pearl [1986b] and Lauritzen and Spiegelhalter [1988]. Although it is well understood that the latter two algorithms are closely related, in fact all three algorithms are identical whenever the belief network is a forest.

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Ross D. Shachter. 2013-03-27. Evidence Absorption and Propagation through Evidence Reversals. https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.1525

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