Approximate lazy evaluation of influence diagrams

Abstract

Influence Diagrams are a tool used to represent and solve decision problems under uncertainty. One of the most efficient exact methods used to evaluate Influence Diagrams is Lazy Evaluation. This paper proposes the use of trees for representing potentials involved in an Influence Diagram in order to obtain an approximate Lazy Evaluation of decision problems. This method will allow to evaluate complex decision problems that are not evaluable with exact methods due to their computational cost. The experimental work compares the efficiency and goodness of the approximate solutions obtained using different kind of trees. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.