Belief networks are used to model uncertainty in a domain. The term “belief networks” encompasses a whole range of different but related techniques which deal with reasoning under uncertainty. Both quantitative (mainly using Bayesian probabilistic methods) and qualitative techniques are used. Influence diagrams are an extension to belief networks; they are used when working with decision making. Belief networks are used to develop knowledge based applications in domains which are characterised by inherent uncertainty. Increasingly, belief network techniques are being employed to deliver advanced knowledge based systems to solve real world problems. Belief networks are particularly useful for diagnostic applications and have been used in many deployed systems. The free-text help facility in the Microsoft Office product employs Bayesian belief network technology. Within a belief network the belief of each node (the node’s conditional probability) is calculated based on observed evidence. Various methods have been developed for evaluating node beliefs and for performing probabilistic inference. Influence diagrams, which are an extension of belief networks, provide facilities for structuring the goals of the diagnosis and for ascertaining the value (the influence) that given information will have when determining a diagnosis. In influence diagrams, there are three types of node: chance nodes, which correspond to the nodes in Bayesian belief networks; utility nodes, which represent the utilities of decisions; and decision nodes, which represent decisions which can be taken to influence the state of the world. Influence diagrams are useful in real world applications where there is often a cost, both in terms of time and money, in obtaining information.
The basic idea in belief networks is that the problem domain is modelled as a set of nodes interconnected with arcs to form a directed acyclic graph. Each node represents a random variable, or uncertain quantity, which can take two or more possible values. The arcs signify the existence of direct influences between the linked variables, and the strength of each influence is quantified by a forward conditional probability.
The Belief Network, which is also called the Bayesian Network, is a directed acyclic graph for probabilistic reasoning. It defines the conditional dependencies of the model by associating each node X with a conditional probability P(X|Pa(X)), where Pa(X) denotes the parents of X. Here are two of its conditional independence properties:
1. Each node is conditionally independent of its non-descendants given its parents.
2. Each node is conditionally independent of all other nodes given its Markov blanket, which consists of its parents, children, and children’s parents.
The inference of Belief Network is to compute the posterior probability distribution
P(H|V) = P(H,V)/ ∑HP(H,V)
where H is the set of the query variables, and V is the set of the evidence variables. Approximate inference involves sampling to compute posteriors. The Sigmoid Belief Network is a type of the Belief Network such that
P(Xi = 1|Pa(Xi)) = σ( ∑Xj ∈ Pa(Xi) WjiXj + bi)
where Wji is the weight assigned to the edge from Xj to Xi, and σ is the sigmoid function.
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