Bayesian Network

A Bayesian network is a probabilistic graphical model, introduced by Judea Pearl in 1988, that encodes a set of variables and their conditional dependencies as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Each node represents a variable; each directed edge encodes a direct probabilistic influence. By combining Bayes' rule with the graph's conditional independence structure, the model supports reasoning under uncertainty — computing the probability of any variable given observed evidence about others.