A Comparison of Induction Algorithms for Selective and non-Selective Bayesian Classifiers

In this paper we present a novel induction algorithm for Bayesian networks. This selective Bayesian network classifier selects a subset of attributes that maximizes predictive accuracy prior to the network learning phase, thereby learning Bayesian networks with a bias for small, high-predictive-accuracy networks. We compare the performance of this classifier with selective and non-selective naive Bayesian classifiers. We show that the selective Bayesian network classifier performs significantly better than both versions of the naive Bayesian classifier on almost all databases analyzed, and hence is an enhancement of the naive Bayesian classifier. Relative to the non-selective Bayesian network classifier, our selective Bayesian network classifier generates networks that are computationally simpler to evaluate and that display predictive accuracy comparable to that of Bayesian networks which model all features.