2,447 research outputs found
MERLiN: Mixture Effect Recovery in Linear Networks
Causal inference concerns the identification of cause-effect relationships
between variables, e.g. establishing whether a stimulus affects activity in a
certain brain region. The observed variables themselves often do not constitute
meaningful causal variables, however, and linear combinations need to be
considered. In electroencephalographic studies, for example, one is not
interested in establishing cause-effect relationships between electrode signals
(the observed variables), but rather between cortical signals (the causal
variables) which can be recovered as linear combinations of electrode signals.
We introduce MERLiN (Mixture Effect Recovery in Linear Networks), a family of
causal inference algorithms that implement a novel means of constructing causal
variables from non-causal variables. We demonstrate through application to EEG
data how the basic MERLiN algorithm can be extended for application to
different (neuroimaging) data modalities. Given an observed linear mixture, the
algorithms can recover a causal variable that is a linear effect of another
given variable. That is, MERLiN allows us to recover a cortical signal that is
affected by activity in a certain brain region, while not being a direct effect
of the stimulus. The Python/Matlab implementation for all presented algorithms
is available on https://github.com/sweichwald/MERLi
Solving Graph Coloring Problems with Abstraction and Symmetry
This paper introduces a general methodology, based on abstraction and
symmetry, that applies to solve hard graph edge-coloring problems and
demonstrates its use to provide further evidence that the Ramsey number
. The number is often presented as the unknown Ramsey
number with the best chances of being found "soon". Yet, its precise value has
remained unknown for more than 50 years. We illustrate our approach by showing
that: (1) there are precisely 78{,}892 Ramsey colorings; and (2)
if there exists a Ramsey coloring then it is (13,8,8) regular.
Specifically each node has 13 edges in the first color, 8 in the second, and 8
in the third. We conjecture that these two results will help provide a proof
that no Ramsey coloring exists implying that
Heuristic algorithms for the min-max edge 2-coloring problem
In multi-channel Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN), each node is able to use
multiple non-overlapping frequency channels. Raniwala et al. (MC2R 2004,
INFOCOM 2005) propose and study several such architectures in which a computer
can have multiple network interface cards. These architectures are modeled as a
graph problem named \emph{maximum edge -coloring} and studied in several
papers by Feng et. al (TAMC 2007), Adamaszek and Popa (ISAAC 2010, JDA 2016).
Later on Larjomaa and Popa (IWOCA 2014, JGAA 2015) define and study an
alternative variant, named the \emph{min-max edge -coloring}.
The above mentioned graph problems, namely the maximum edge -coloring and
the min-max edge -coloring are studied mainly from the theoretical
perspective. In this paper, we study the min-max edge 2-coloring problem from a
practical perspective. More precisely, we introduce, implement and test four
heuristic approximation algorithms for the min-max edge -coloring problem.
These algorithms are based on a \emph{Breadth First Search} (BFS)-based
heuristic and on \emph{local search} methods like basic \emph{hill climbing},
\emph{simulated annealing} and \emph{tabu search} techniques, respectively.
Although several algorithms for particular graph classes were proposed by
Larjomaa and Popa (e.g., trees, planar graphs, cliques, bi-cliques,
hypergraphs), we design the first algorithms for general graphs.
We study and compare the running data for all algorithms on Unit Disk Graphs,
as well as some graphs from the DIMACS vertex coloring benchmark dataset.Comment: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article
published in International Computing and Combinatorics Conference
(COCOON'18). The final authenticated version is available online at:
http://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94776-1_5
The DLV System for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
This paper presents the DLV system, which is widely considered the
state-of-the-art implementation of disjunctive logic programming, and addresses
several aspects. As for problem solving, we provide a formal definition of its
kernel language, function-free disjunctive logic programs (also known as
disjunctive datalog), extended by weak constraints, which are a powerful tool
to express optimization problems. We then illustrate the usage of DLV as a tool
for knowledge representation and reasoning, describing a new declarative
programming methodology which allows one to encode complex problems (up to
-complete problems) in a declarative fashion. On the foundational
side, we provide a detailed analysis of the computational complexity of the
language of DLV, and by deriving new complexity results we chart a complete
picture of the complexity of this language and important fragments thereof.
Furthermore, we illustrate the general architecture of the DLV system which
has been influenced by these results. As for applications, we overview
application front-ends which have been developed on top of DLV to solve
specific knowledge representation tasks, and we briefly describe the main
international projects investigating the potential of the system for industrial
exploitation. Finally, we report about thorough experimentation and
benchmarking, which has been carried out to assess the efficiency of the
system. The experimental results confirm the solidity of DLV and highlight its
potential for emerging application areas like knowledge management and
information integration.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures, 6 table
Structural Intervention Distance (SID) for Evaluating Causal Graphs
Causal inference relies on the structure of a graph, often a directed acyclic
graph (DAG). Different graphs may result in different causal inference
statements and different intervention distributions. To quantify such
differences, we propose a (pre-) distance between DAGs, the structural
intervention distance (SID). The SID is based on a graphical criterion only and
quantifies the closeness between two DAGs in terms of their corresponding
causal inference statements. It is therefore well-suited for evaluating graphs
that are used for computing interventions. Instead of DAGs it is also possible
to compare CPDAGs, completed partially directed acyclic graphs that represent
Markov equivalence classes. Since it differs significantly from the popular
Structural Hamming Distance (SHD), the SID constitutes a valuable additional
measure. We discuss properties of this distance and provide an efficient
implementation with software code available on the first author's homepage (an
R package is under construction)
Disentangling causal webs in the brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A review of current approaches
In the past two decades, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging has been used
to relate neuronal network activity to cognitive processing and behaviour.
Recently this approach has been augmented by algorithms that allow us to infer
causal links between component populations of neuronal networks. Multiple
inference procedures have been proposed to approach this research question but
so far, each method has limitations when it comes to establishing whole-brain
connectivity patterns. In this work, we discuss eight ways to infer causality
in fMRI research: Bayesian Nets, Dynamical Causal Modelling, Granger Causality,
Likelihood Ratios, LiNGAM, Patel's Tau, Structural Equation Modelling, and
Transfer Entropy. We finish with formulating some recommendations for the
future directions in this area
Causal Discovery with Continuous Additive Noise Models
We consider the problem of learning causal directed acyclic graphs from an
observational joint distribution. One can use these graphs to predict the
outcome of interventional experiments, from which data are often not available.
We show that if the observational distribution follows a structural equation
model with an additive noise structure, the directed acyclic graph becomes
identifiable from the distribution under mild conditions. This constitutes an
interesting alternative to traditional methods that assume faithfulness and
identify only the Markov equivalence class of the graph, thus leaving some
edges undirected. We provide practical algorithms for finitely many samples,
RESIT (Regression with Subsequent Independence Test) and two methods based on
an independence score. We prove that RESIT is correct in the population setting
and provide an empirical evaluation
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