Learning Dynamic Bayesian Networks

Suppose we wish to build a model of data from a finite sequence of ordered observations, {Y1, Y2,..., Yt}. In most realistic scenarios, from modeling stock prices to physiological data, the observations are not related deterministically. Furthermore, there is added uncertainty resulting from the limited size of our data set and any mismatch between our model and the true process. Probability theory provides a powerful tool for expressing both randomness and uncertainty in our model [23]. We can express the uncertainty in our prediction of the future outcome Yt+l via a probability density P(Yt+llY1,..., Yt). Such a probability density can then be used to make point predictions, define error bars, or make decisions that are expected to minimize some loss function. This chapter presents a probabilistic framework for learning models of tempo-ral data. We express these models using the Bayesian network formalism (a.k.a. probabilistic graphical models or belief networks)--a marriage of probability theory and graph theory in which dependencies between variables are expressed graphically. The graph not only allows the user to understand which variable