M.J.: On the role of contextual weak independence in probabilistic inference

Abstract. Previous experimental results have clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of utilizing context-specific independence (CSI) in probabilistic inference. However, CSI is a special case of a more general independence called contextual weak independence (CWI). In this paper, we show how CWI can be utilized for more efficient probabilistic inference. These results are quite significant as they suggest that CWI may play an important role in probabilistic inference.