  An algorithm for automated construction of a sparse Bayesian network given an
unstructured probabilistic model and causal domain information from an expert
has been developed and implemented. The goal is to obtain a network that
explicitly reveals as much information regarding conditional independence as
possible. The network is built incrementally adding one node at a time. The
expert's information and a greedy heuristic that tries to keep the number of
arcs added at each step to a minimum are used to guide the search for the next
node to add. The probabilistic model is a predicate that can answer queries
about independencies in the domain. In practice the model can be implemented in
various ways. For example, the model could be a statistical independence test
operating on empirical data or a deductive prover operating on a set of
independence statements about the domain.
