# MAP estimation via agreement on trees: message-passing and linear programming

@article{Wainwright2005MAPEV,
title={MAP estimation via agreement on trees: message-passing and linear programming},
author={Martin J. Wainwright and T. Jaakkola and Alan S. Willsky},
journal={IEEE Transactions on Information Theory},
year={2005},
volume={51},
pages={3697-3717}
}
• Published 1 November 2005
• Computer Science
• IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
We develop and analyze methods for computing provably optimal maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) configurations for a subclass of Markov random fields defined on graphs with cycles. By decomposing the original distribution into a convex combination of tree-structured distributions, we obtain an upper bound on the optimal value of the original problem (i.e., the log probability of the MAP assignment) in terms of the combined optimal values of the tree problems. We prove that this upper bound…
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