Patent ID: 7184993

Claim:
A computer-implemented system that facilitates deriving an inference in a Bayesian network comprising: a component that accesses a decision-graph Bayesian network; and an approximation component that determines a tractable variational approximation by selecting a bound that adjusts processing time through a bounding equation: log ⁢ ⁢ p ⁡ ( x ) > ∑ h ⁢ ⁢ q ⁡ ( h ❘ x ) ⁢ ⁢ log ⁢ [ p ⁡ ( x , h ) q ⁡ ( h ❘ x ) ] ; wherein x and h are sets of variables that form a full domain of the Bayesian network, h represents hidden or unobserved nodes in the decision-graph Bayesian network, x represents observed nodes in the decision-graph Bayesian network, p(x) represents a marginal probability for the decision-graph Bayesian network, p(x, h) represents joint probabilities for x and h, and q(h|x) is an arbitrary conditional distribution over h given x.