Top-Down Construction and Repetetive Structures Representation in Bayesian Networks

Bayesian networks for large and complex domains are difficult to construct and maintain. For example modifying a small network fragment in a repetitive structure might be very time consuming. Top-down modelling may simplify the construction of large Bayesian networks, but methods (partly) supporting top-down modelling have only recently been introduced and tools do not exist. In this paper, we try to take a topdown approach to constructing Bayesian networks by using existing object oriented methods. We change these where they fail to support op-down modeling. This provides a new framework that allows topdown methodologies forthe construction of Bayesian networks, provides anefficient class hierarchy and a compact way of specifying and representing temporal Bayesian networks. Furthermore, a conceptual simplification is achieved.