New node

Variables in a Bayesian network or Dynamic Bayesian network, are specified by adding nodes to a network. An individual node can contain one or more variables.

New node

Name

Each node in a network must be given a unique name (case sensitive), to allow identification.

Description

A node can be given an optional description in order to help identify its purpose.

Temporal Type

The Temporal Type determines the type of node to add:

Temporal type Description
Contemporal (Standard) A standard node that is not repeated at each time step.
Temporal A temporal node, which can be queried or have evidence set at each time step.
Initial A node which cannot link to temporal nodes at time t > 0.
Terminal A node which cannot link to temporal nodes except for the last time slice.

Noisy Type

The Noisy Type determines whether the node should be a noisy node, which can help reduce the number of parameters of nodes with many parents.

Zero intercepts

When set to true, any intercept terms of continuous distributions for the node, are fixed at zero. This only effects continuous distributions with tails.

NOTE

When true, any fixed intercept terms are no longer included when counting the number of parameters for the network.

Variable

The Variable section specifies the type and number of Variables to add to the new node.

The toolbar can be used to add or remove states for discrete variables.

If required, a variable can have a value assigned to each state, in addition to a name. For more information see State values.