9,180 research outputs found
backShift: Learning causal cyclic graphs from unknown shift interventions
We propose a simple method to learn linear causal cyclic models in the
presence of latent variables. The method relies on equilibrium data of the
model recorded under a specific kind of interventions ("shift interventions").
The location and strength of these interventions do not have to be known and
can be estimated from the data. Our method, called backShift, only uses second
moments of the data and performs simple joint matrix diagonalization, applied
to differences between covariance matrices. We give a sufficient and necessary
condition for identifiability of the system, which is fulfilled almost surely
under some quite general assumptions if and only if there are at least three
distinct experimental settings, one of which can be pure observational data. We
demonstrate the performance on some simulated data and applications in flow
cytometry and financial time series. The code is made available as R-package
backShift
Identifiability and transportability in dynamic causal networks
In this paper we propose a causal analog to the purely observational Dynamic Bayesian Networks, which we call Dynamic Causal Networks.
We provide a sound and complete algorithm for identification of Dynamic Causal Networks, namely, for computing the effect of an intervention or experiment, based on passive observations only, whenever possible. We note the existence of two types of confounder variables that affect in substantially different ways the identification
procedures, a distinction with no analog in either Dynamic Bayesian Networks or standard causal graphs. We further propose a procedure
for the transportability of causal effects in Dynamic Causal Network settings, where the result of causal experiments in a source domain may be used for the identification of causal effects in a target domain.Preprin
Beyond Structural Causal Models: Causal Constraints Models
Structural Causal Models (SCMs) provide a popular causal modeling framework.
In this work, we show that SCMs are not flexible enough to give a complete
causal representation of dynamical systems at equilibrium. Instead, we propose
a generalization of the notion of an SCM, that we call Causal Constraints Model
(CCM), and prove that CCMs do capture the causal semantics of such systems. We
show how CCMs can be constructed from differential equations and initial
conditions and we illustrate our ideas further on a simple but ubiquitous
(bio)chemical reaction. Our framework also allows to model functional laws,
such as the ideal gas law, in a sensible and intuitive way.Comment: Published in Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference on Uncertainty
in Artificial Intelligence (UAI-19
Causal Consistency of Structural Equation Models
Complex systems can be modelled at various levels of detail. Ideally, causal
models of the same system should be consistent with one another in the sense
that they agree in their predictions of the effects of interventions. We
formalise this notion of consistency in the case of Structural Equation Models
(SEMs) by introducing exact transformations between SEMs. This provides a
general language to consider, for instance, the different levels of description
in the following three scenarios: (a) models with large numbers of variables
versus models in which the `irrelevant' or unobservable variables have been
marginalised out; (b) micro-level models versus macro-level models in which the
macro-variables are aggregate features of the micro-variables; (c) dynamical
time series models versus models of their stationary behaviour. Our analysis
stresses the importance of well specified interventions in the causal modelling
process and sheds light on the interpretation of cyclic SEMs.Comment: equal contribution between Rubenstein and Weichwald; accepted
manuscrip
Graphical continuous Lyapunov models
The linear Lyapunov equation of a covariance matrix parametrizes the
equilibrium covariance matrix of a stochastic process. This parametrization can
be interpreted as a new graphical model class, and we show how the model class
behaves under marginalization and introduce a method for structure learning via
-penalized loss minimization. Our proposed method is demonstrated to
outperform alternative structure learning algorithms in a simulation study, and
we illustrate its application for protein phosphorylation network
reconstruction.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Local Causal States and Discrete Coherent Structures
Coherent structures form spontaneously in nonlinear spatiotemporal systems
and are found at all spatial scales in natural phenomena from laboratory
hydrodynamic flows and chemical reactions to ocean, atmosphere, and planetary
climate dynamics. Phenomenologically, they appear as key components that
organize the macroscopic behaviors in such systems. Despite a century of
effort, they have eluded rigorous analysis and empirical prediction, with
progress being made only recently. As a step in this, we present a formal
theory of coherent structures in fully-discrete dynamical field theories. It
builds on the notion of structure introduced by computational mechanics,
generalizing it to a local spatiotemporal setting. The analysis' main tool
employs the \localstates, which are used to uncover a system's hidden
spatiotemporal symmetries and which identify coherent structures as
spatially-localized deviations from those symmetries. The approach is
behavior-driven in the sense that it does not rely on directly analyzing
spatiotemporal equations of motion, rather it considers only the spatiotemporal
fields a system generates. As such, it offers an unsupervised approach to
discover and describe coherent structures. We illustrate the approach by
analyzing coherent structures generated by elementary cellular automata,
comparing the results with an earlier, dynamic-invariant-set approach that
decomposes fields into domains, particles, and particle interactions.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures;
http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/dcs.ht
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