Stable independence in perfect maps

Abstract

With the aid of the concept of stable independence we can construct, in an efficient way, a compact representation of a semi-graphoid independence relation. We show that this representation provides a new necessary condition for the existence of a directed perfect map for the relation. The test for this condition is based to a large extent on the transitivity property of a special form of d-separation. The complexity of the test is linear in the size of the representation. The test, moreover, brings the additional benefit that it can be used to guide the early stages of network construction.