NeuroCOLT

Neural Networks and Computational Learning Theory

 

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NeuroCOLT Technical Report NC-TR-95-034

Mapping Bayesian Networks to Boltzmann Machines

Petri Myllymäki
University of Helsinki
Finland

Abstract
We study the task of finding a maximal a posteriori (MAP) instantiation of Bayesian network variables, given a partial value assignment as an initial constraint. This problem is known to be NP-hard, so we concentrate on a stochastic approximation algorithm, simulated annealing. This stochastic algorithm can be realized as a sequential process on the set of Bayesian network variables, where only one variable is allowed to change at a time. Consequently, the method can become impractically slow as the number of variables increases. We present a method for mapping a given Bayesian network to a massively parallel Bolztmann machine neural network architecture, in the sense that instead of using the normal sequential simulated annealing algorithm, we can use a massively parallel stochastic process on the Boltzmann machine architecture. The neural network updating process provably converges to a state which solves a given MAP task.

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