Efficient learning of general Bayesian network Classifier by Local and Adaptive Search

General Bayesian network classifier (GBNC) contains only features necessary for classification, so an ideal structure learning solution is to learn GBNC without having to learn the whole Bayesian network (BN). A local search based algorithm called LAS-GBNC is proposed. Given faithfulness assumption, LAS-GBNC relies on the information about each variable´s appearance in the so-called d-separator(cut set) to sort candidate CI tests dynamically, performing `effective´ ones with priority. Experimental studies indicate that (1) LAS-GBNC achieves the same quality of networks as PC and IPC-BNC, (2)It is much more efficient than PC due to its local search design, and (3) It is obviously faster than IPC-BNC because of its adaptive search strategy.