The currently most efficient algorithm for inference with a probabilistic network builds upon a triangulation of a network's graph. In this paper, we show that pre-processing can help in finding good triangulations for probabilistic networks, that is, triangulations with a minimal maximum clique size. We provide a set of rules for stepwise reducing a graph. The reduction allows us to solve the triangulation problem on a smaller graph. From the smaller graph's triangulation, a triangulation of the original graph is obtained by reversing the reduction steps. Our experimental results show that the graphs of some well-known real-life probabilistic networks can be triangulated optimally just by pre-processing; for other networks, huge reductions in size are obtained.
['Hans L. Bodlaender', 'Arie M. C. A. Koster', 'Frank van den Eijkhof', 'Linda C. van der Gaag']
Pre-processing for triangulation of probabilistic networks