Probabilistic Expert Systems (CBMS-NSF Regional Conference Series in Applied Mathematics, Series Number 67)

Probabilistic Expert Systems emphasizes the basic computational principles that make probabilistic reasoning feasible in expert systems. The key to computation in these systems is the modularity of the probabilistic model. Shafer describes and compares the principal architectures for exploiting this modularity in the computation of prior and posterior probabilities. He also indicates how these similar yet different architectures apply to a wide variety of other problems of recursive computation in applied mathematics and operations research. This book describes probabilistic expert systems in a more rigorous and focused way than existing literature, and provides an annotated bibliography that includes pointers to conferences and software. Also included are exercises that will help the reader begin to explore the problem of generalizing from probability to broader domains of recursive computation.