Impact of Learning Strategies on the Quality of Bayesian Networks: An Empirical Evaluation

Brandon Malone, Matti Järvisalo, Petri Myllymaki Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
Proceedings of the 31st Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, PMLR R13:407-416, 2015.

Abstract

We present results from a empirical evaluation of the impact of Bayesian network structure learning strategies on the learned structures. In particular, we investigate how learning algorithms with different optimality guarantees compare in terms of the structural aspects and generalisability of the produced network structures. For example, in terms of generalization to unseen testing data, we show that local search algorithms often benefit from a tight constraint on the number of parents of variables in the networks, while exact approaches tend to benefit from looser parent restrictions. Overall, we find that learning strategies with weak optimality guarantees show good performs synthetic datasets, but, compared to exact approaches, perform poorly on the more “real-world” datasets. The exact approaches, which guarantee to find globally optimal solutions, consistently generalize well to unseen testing data, motivating further work on increasing the robustness and scalability of such algorithmic approaches to Bayesian network structure learning.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-vR13-malone15a, title = {Impact of Learning Strategies on the Quality of {B}ayesian Networks: An Empirical Evaluation}, author = {Malone, Brandon and J{\"a}rvisalo, Matti and Technology, Petri Myllymaki Helsinki Institute for Information}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 31st Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence}, pages = {407--416}, year = {2015}, editor = {Meila, Marina and Heskes, Tom}, volume = {R13}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {12--16 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/r13/main/assets/malone15a/malone15a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/r13/malone15a.html}, abstract = {We present results from a empirical evaluation of the impact of Bayesian network structure learning strategies on the learned structures. In particular, we investigate how learning algorithms with different optimality guarantees compare in terms of the structural aspects and generalisability of the produced network structures. For example, in terms of generalization to unseen testing data, we show that local search algorithms often benefit from a tight constraint on the number of parents of variables in the networks, while exact approaches tend to benefit from looser parent restrictions. Overall, we find that learning strategies with weak optimality guarantees show good performs synthetic datasets, but, compared to exact approaches, perform poorly on the more “real-world” datasets. The exact approaches, which guarantee to find globally optimal solutions, consistently generalize well to unseen testing data, motivating further work on increasing the robustness and scalability of such algorithmic approaches to Bayesian network structure learning.}, note = {Reissued by PMLR on 04 October 2026.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Impact of Learning Strategies on the Quality of Bayesian Networks: An Empirical Evaluation %A Brandon Malone %A Matti Järvisalo %A Petri Myllymaki Helsinki Institute for Information Technology %B Proceedings of the 31st Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2015 %E Marina Meila %E Tom Heskes %F pmlr-vR13-malone15a %I PMLR %P 407--416 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/r13/malone15a.html %V R13 %X We present results from a empirical evaluation of the impact of Bayesian network structure learning strategies on the learned structures. In particular, we investigate how learning algorithms with different optimality guarantees compare in terms of the structural aspects and generalisability of the produced network structures. For example, in terms of generalization to unseen testing data, we show that local search algorithms often benefit from a tight constraint on the number of parents of variables in the networks, while exact approaches tend to benefit from looser parent restrictions. Overall, we find that learning strategies with weak optimality guarantees show good performs synthetic datasets, but, compared to exact approaches, perform poorly on the more “real-world” datasets. The exact approaches, which guarantee to find globally optimal solutions, consistently generalize well to unseen testing data, motivating further work on increasing the robustness and scalability of such algorithmic approaches to Bayesian network structure learning. %Z Reissued by PMLR on 04 October 2026.
APA
Malone, B., Järvisalo, M. & Technology, P.M.H.I.f.I.. (2015). Impact of Learning Strategies on the Quality of Bayesian Networks: An Empirical Evaluation. Proceedings of the 31st Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research R13:407-416 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/r13/malone15a.html. Reissued by PMLR on 04 October 2026.

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