Value Elimination: Bayesian Inference via Backtracking Search
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We present Value Elimination, a new algorithm for Bayesian Inference. Given the same variable ordering information, Value Elimination can achieve performance that is within a constant factor of variable elimination or recursive conditioning, and on some problems it can perform exponentially better, irrespective of the variable ordering used by these algorithms. Value Elimination’s other features include: (1) it can achieve the same space-time tradeoff guarantees as recursive conditioning; (2) it can utilize all of the logical reasoning techniques used in state of the art SAT solvers; these techniques allow it to obtain considerable extra mileage out of zero entries in the CPTs; (3) it can be naturally and easily extended to take advantage of context specific structure; and (4) it supports dynamic variable orderings which might be particularly advantageous in the presence of context specific structure. We have implemented a version of Value Elimination that demonstrates very promising performance, often being one or two orders of magnitude faster than a commercial Bayes inference engine, despite the fact that it does not as yet take advantage of context specific structure. 1
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.017 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.003 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".