Non-parametric Bayesian networks: Improving theory and reviewing applications

Anca Hanea, Oswaldo Morales Napoles and Dan Ababei

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2015, vol. 144, issue C, 265-284

Abstract: Applications in various domains often lead to high dimensional dependence modelling. A Bayesian network (BN) is a probabilistic graphical model that provides an elegant way of expressing the joint distribution of a large number of interrelated variables. BNs have been successfully used to represent uncertain knowledge in a variety of fields. The majority of applications use discrete BNs, i.e. BNs whose nodes represent discrete variables. Integrating continuous variables in BNs is an area fraught with difficulty. Several methods that handle discrete-continuous BNs have been proposed in the literature. This paper concentrates only on one method called non-parametric BNs (NPBNs). NPBNs were introduced in 2004 and they have been or are currently being used in at least twelve professional applications. This paper provides a short introduction to NPBNs, a couple of theoretical advances, and an overview of applications. The aim of the paper is twofold: one is to present the latest improvements of the theory underlying NPBNs, and the other is to complement the existing overviews of BNs applications with the NPNBs applications. The latter opens the opportunity to discuss some difficulties that applications pose to the theoretical framework and in this way offers some NPBN modelling guidance to practitioners.

Keywords: Bayesian networks; Model selection; Quantification; Inference; Structured expert judgement; Risk; Safety; Reliability; Parameter estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832015002331
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:144:y:2015:i:c:p:265-284

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2015.07.027

Access Statistics for this article

Reliability Engineering and System Safety is currently edited by Carlos Guedes Soares

More articles in Reliability Engineering and System Safety from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().