Learning Optimal Bayesian Networks Using A* Search

Changhe Yuan, Brandon M. Malone, XiaoJian Wu

Abstract: This paper formulates learning optimal Bayesian network as a shortest path finding problem. An A* search algorithm is introduced to solve the problem. With the guidance of a consistent heuristic, the algorithm learns an optimal Bayesian network by only searching the most promising parts of the solution space. Empirical results show that the A* search algorithm significantly improves the time and space efficiency of existing methods on a set of benchmark datasets.