ECAI-2002 Conference Paper

[full paper]

Building Bayesian Networks through Ontologies

Eveline M. Helsper, Linda C. van der Gaag

To support building and maintaining knowledge-based systems for real-life application domains, sophisticated knowledge-engineering methodologies are available. As more and more Bayesian networks are being developed for complex applications, their construction and maintenance calls for the use of tailor-made knowledge-engineering methodologies. We have designed such a methodology and have studied its use within the domain of oesophageal cancer. Based upon expert knowledge and a previously constructed Bayesian network, we have built an ontology for this domain, from which we have constructed, in a sequence of steps, a new network. The use of our methodology has allowed us to address, in a structured fashion, the various intricate modelling issues involved.

Keywords: Probabilistic Reasoning, Ontologies, Knowledge-based Systems

Citation: Eveline M. Helsper, Linda C. van der Gaag: Building Bayesian Networks through Ontologies. In F. van Harmelen (ed.): ECAI2002, Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2002, pp.680-684.