Features

Graphical Editing of Bayesian Networks

• Use MSBNx to graphically relate causes to effects.
• Express a system's uncertainty by giving your probabilities of various situations.

Exact Probability Calculations

• MSBNx uses clique-tree propagation methods to calculate the probabilities exactly.

Decision-Theoretic Diagnosis, Troubleshooting, and Recommendations

• Using your cost information or defaults, MSBNx dynamically recommends troubleshooting steps.
• It bases its recommendations on a cost-benefit analysis.
• If you provide no cost information, a Value of Information (VOI) measure determines the recommendation order.

XML Format

• MSBNx loads and stores files in an XML-based format.

COM API

• The MSBN3 ActiveX DLL provides an COM-based API for editing and evaluating Bayesian Networks.
• MSBNx's event-based design makes it especially easy to use from COM-friendly languages such as Visual Basic and JScript.

Comprehensive Help Pages

• Help pages for both the MSBNx editor and the MSBN3 API are on-line
• The manuals are also installed as Windows Help documents.
• While editing with MSBNx or while programming with MSBN3, pressing F1 will bring up help for the topic on which you are currently working.
• The MSBN3 API Help includes overviews of loading models, running inference, and other common programming tasks.

Other ActiveX controls

• MSBNx includes several graphic components that can be used directly by other programs written in languages that support ActiveX, such as Visual Basic, JScript and C++.

Add-Ins

• You can extend the editing and evaluation abilities of MSBNx by creating add-ins. These add-ins are ActiveX DLLs. They can be created in languages such as Visual Basic.

Standard Assessment of Probabilities

• Use the Standard Assessment Tool to assess the probabilities of various situations.
• Reduce the number of probabilities you need to specified by assuming causal independence.
• Control the formatting of the probability tables.
• Optionally display probabilities as odds.
• Use the Standard Assessment Tool as an ActiveX component in other programs.

Asymmetric Assessment

• When different situations can be treated the same, you can use the Asymmetric Assessment Tool to reduce the the number of probabilities you need to specified.

Dynamic Properties

Either interactively or programmatically, you can define and attach property values to models and nodes. For example, you can define a property type called �DatabaseKey� with string values. Then on each node in a model, you can attach a string value to used for looking up more information related the node in a database. Model and nodes can have any number of properties. Property values can be strings, reals, arrays of string or reals, or enumerated types.

Hidden Markov Models

• MSBNx includes an (undocumented) add-in for editing and evaluating Hidden Markov Models (HMMs).
• Inference on HMM's is exact, but inefficient for large models.