English

Generalized Naive Bayes

Machine Learning 2024-08-29 v1 Machine Learning

Abstract

In this paper we introduce the so-called Generalized Naive Bayes structure as an extension of the Naive Bayes structure. We give a new greedy algorithm that finds a good fitting Generalized Naive Bayes (GNB) probability distribution. We prove that this fits the data at least as well as the probability distribution determined by the classical Naive Bayes (NB). Then, under a not very restrictive condition, we give a second algorithm for which we can prove that it finds the optimal GNB probability distribution, i.e. best fitting structure in the sense of KL divergence. Both algorithms are constructed to maximize the information content and aim to minimize redundancy. Based on these algorithms, new methods for feature selection are introduced. We discuss the similarities and differences to other related algorithms in terms of structure, methodology, and complexity. Experimental results show, that the algorithms introduced outperform the related algorithms in many cases.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.15923,
  title  = {Generalized Naive Bayes},
  author = {Edith Alice Kovács and Anna Ország and Dániel Pfeifer and András Benczúr},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.15923},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

44 pages, 19 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:26:46.225Z