Bayesian Erlang: Help with translation from Prolog

Joel Reymont joelr1@REDACTED
Wed Jan 11 23:52:07 CET 2006


Folks,

I'm looking at http://www.ainewsletter.com/newsletters/ 
aix_0304.htm#code_corner and trying to translate the following from  
Prolog. Would someone kindly lend me a hand?

	Thanks, Joel

P.S.

First we represent the basic probability facts as Prolog facts:

p(patient(cancer), 0.1).
p(patient(smoker), 0.5).

We then represent the conditional probabilities, using a ^ operator:

cp(patient(smoker) ^ patient(cancer), 0.8).

Next we write query rules that can be used to find various  
probabilities. There are three rules, covering the case where the  
probability is known, the conditional probability is known, or we can  
compute the conditional probability using Bayes theorem. Words  
beginning with upper case letters are variables in Prolog. Note that  
the third rule recursively calls itself to get the individual  
probabilities.

getp(A,P) :-
    p(A,P), !.
getp(A^B, P) :-
    cp(A^B, P), !.
getp(A^B, P) :-
    cp(B^A, Pba),
    getp(A, Pa),
    getp(B, Pb),
    P is Pba * Pa / Pb.

We now have a simple system for representing and querying knowledge  
expressed as probabilities. We can consult these facts and rules into  
a Prolog listener and try it:

?- getp(patient(cancer), P).
P = 0.1

?- getp(patient(smoker)^patient(cancer), P).
P = 0.8

?- getp(patient(cancer)^patient(smoker), P).
P = 0.16

--
http://wagerlabs.com/








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