Skip to main content
Article
Explaining Inferences in Bayesian Networks
Applied Intelligence
  • Ghim-Eng YAP, Nanyang Technological University
  • Ah-Hwee TAN, Nanyang Technological University
  • Hwee Hwa PANG, Singapore Management University
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
12-2008
Abstract

While Bayesian network (BN) can achieve accurate predictions even with erroneous or incomplete evidence, explaining the inferences remains a challenge. Existing approaches fall short because they do not exploit variable interactions and cannot account for compensations during inferences. This paper proposes the Explaining BN Inferences (EBI) procedure for explaining how variables interact to reach conclusions. EBI explains the value of a target node in terms of the influential nodes in the target's Markov blanket under specific contexts, where the Markov nodes include the target's parents, children, and the children's other parents. Working back from the target node, EBI shows the derivation of each intermediate variable, and finally explains how missing and erroneous evidence values are compensated. We validated EBI on a variety of problem domains, including mushroom classification, water purification and web page recommendation. The experiments show that EBI generates high quality, concise and comprehensible explanations for BN inferences, in particular the underlying compensation mechanism that enables BN to outperform alternative prediction systems, such as decision tree.

Keywords
  • Bayesian networks,
  • Explanations,
  • Inferences,
  • Compensations,
  • Error values,
  • Missing values
Identifier
10.1007/s10489-007-0093-8
Publisher
Springer Verlag
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-007-0093-8
Citation Information
Ghim-Eng YAP, Ah-Hwee TAN and Hwee Hwa PANG. "Explaining Inferences in Bayesian Networks" Applied Intelligence Vol. 29 Iss. 3 (2008) p. 263 - 278 ISSN: 0924-669X
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/hweehwa-pang/32/