Bayesian network ($p(x)={\prod }_{j}p(x_j\mid x_{\mathrm{pa}(j)})$)

A Bayesian network consists of a Directed acyclic graph $G$ whose nodes are random variables, together with conditional distributions satisfying $p(x)={\prod }_{j}p(x_j\mid x_{{\mathrm{pa}}_G(j)})$. Its Directed acyclic graph encodes conditional independence constraints. For unrestricted binary variables it has ${\sum }_j{2}^{|{\mathrm{pa}}_G(j)|}$ free conditional probabilities. A Directed acyclic graph used this way need not have a causal interpretation.

For observations $\mathcal{D}$ and graph $G$, Bayes theorem gives $p(G\mid \mathcal{D})\propto \pi (G)\int p(\mathcal{D}\mid {\theta }_G,G)\pi ({\theta }_G\mid G)d{\theta }_G$. Here $\pi (G)$ is the graph prior distribution and ${\theta }_G$ the local distribution statistical parameters. The integral is Bayesian model evidence; it averages over nuisance parameters with a proper statistical parameter prior distribution. For independent complete observations, the node-factorized likelihood function and independence of local statistical parameter prior distributions make the evidence factor over nodes; suitable conjugate priors can make the local integrals analytic. With missing node observations, integrating out unobserved values can couple the local parameters, so independence of local prior distributions alone does not guarantee this factorization. Proper priors and coherent hyperparameters matter for comparing different graphs.

A Gaussian Bayesian network specifies a linear normal conditional model at each node of a Bayesian network: $X_j\mid X_{\mathrm{pa}(j)}\sim N({\alpha }_j+{\gamma }_j^T{X}_{\mathrm{pa}(j)},{\sigma }_j^2)$. Independent local errors and an acyclic ordering generate a joint multivariate normal distribution. Positive conditional variances give a nonsingular joint multivariate normal distribution. The graph constrains regression coefficients and hence conditional independence.