Localized Partial Evaluation of Belief Networks

Abstract: Most algorithms for propagating evidence through belief networks have been exact and exhaustive: they produce an exact (point-valued) marginal probability for every node in the network. Often, however, an application will not need information about every n ode in the network nor will it need exact probabilities. We present the localized partial evaluation (LPE) propagation algorithm, which computes interval bounds on the marginal probability of a specified query node by examining a subset of the nodes in the entire network. Conceptually, LPE ignores parts of the network that are "too far away" from the queried node to have much impact on its value. LPE has the "anytime" property of being able to produce better solutions (tighter intervals) given more time to consider more of the network.