An efficient Bayesian network structure learning algorithm using the strategy of two-stage searches

It is important for Bayesian network (BN) structure learning, a NP-problem, to improve the accuracy and hybrid algorithms are a kind of effective structure learning algorithms at present. Most hybrid algorithms adopt the strategy of one heuristic search and can be divided into two groups: one heuristic search based on initial BN skeleton and one heuristic search based on initial solutions. The former often fails to guarantee globality of the optimal structure and the latter fails to get the optimal solution because of large search space. In this paper, an efficient hybrid algorithm is proposed with the strategy of two-stage searches. For first-stage search, it firstly determines the local search space based on Maximal Information Coefficient by introducing penalty factors p1, p2, then searches the local space by Binary Particle Swarm Optimization. For second-stage search, an efficient ADR (the abbreviation of Add, Delete, Reverse) algorithm based on three basic operators is designed to extend the local space to the whole space. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain better performance of BN structure learning.