  In this paper, we consider the multivariate Bernoulli distribution as a model
to estimate the structure of graphs with binary nodes. This distribution is
discussed in the framework of the exponential family, and its statistical
properties regarding independence of the nodes are demonstrated. Importantly
the model can estimate not only the main effects and pairwise interactions
among the nodes but also is capable of modeling higher order interactions,
allowing for the existence of complex clique effects. We compare the
multivariate Bernoulli model with existing graphical inference models - the
Ising model and the multivariate Gaussian model, where only the pairwise
interactions are considered. On the other hand, the multivariate Bernoulli
distribution has an interesting property in that independence and
uncorrelatedness of the component random variables are equivalent. Both the
marginal and conditional distributions of a subset of variables in the
multivariate Bernoulli distribution still follow the multivariate Bernoulli
distribution. Furthermore, the multivariate Bernoulli logistic model is
developed under generalized linear model theory by utilizing the canonical link
function in order to include covariate information on the nodes, edges and
cliques. We also consider variable selection techniques such as LASSO in the
logistic model to impose sparsity structure on the graph. Finally, we discuss
extending the smoothing spline ANOVA approach to the multivariate Bernoulli
logistic model to enable estimation of non-linear effects of the predictor
variables.
