Introduction to Learning Bayesian Networks from Data

Abstract

Bayesian networks are a combination of probability theory and graph theory. Graph theory provides a framework to represent complex structures of highly-interacting sets of variables. Probability theory provides a method to infer these structures from observations or measurements in the presence of noise and uncertainty. Many problems in computational molecular biology and bioinformatics, like sequence alignment, molecular evolution, and genetic networks, can be treated as particular instances of the general problem of learning Bayesian networks from data. This chapter provides a brief introduction, in preparation for later chapters of this book.