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AI Lexicon — J

Published May 17, 2024last updated May 17, 2024

Do you know your AI from your ML? Or your facial recognition from your Ethical AI? Our AI Lexicon offers easy-to-understand definitions and examples of AI in everyday life. It really is what you need to know.

DW Science | AI Lexicon by Zulfikar Abbany
J joins the dots in all the data (when they're in a junction tree)Image: Ayse Tasci-Steinebach/DW

Junction Tree

A junction tree is a method of organizing and understanding data, using a graph which branches off, like a tree, and where each branch holds a clustered subset of data that relates to a certain variable. It's useful because the junctions — where the subsets of data meet — show where they overlap, or where there are similarities in the data.

Junction tree algorithms, meanwhile, are used in machine learning, where datasets can be massive and where the goal is to calculate probabilities, such as the likelihood of a person buying a product or their having an accident while crossing a busy road. Junction trees are sometimes referred to as cinque trees, but these are not necessarily or always the same thing. (za/fs)

 

Sources:

A Short Course on Graphical Models (Mark Paskin, Stanford) https://ai.stanford.edu/~paskin/gm-short-course/lec3.pdf (accessed October 18, 2023)

The Junction Tree Algorithm (Berkeley) https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jordan/courses/281A-fall04/lectures/lec-11-16.pdf (accessed October 18, 2023)

The Junction Tree Algorithm (Chris Williams, University of Edinburgh) https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pmr/slides/jta-2x2.pdf (accessed October 18, 2023)

Read the rest of DW's AI Lexicon:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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Written and edited by: Zulfikar Abbany (za), Fred Schwaller (fs)

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