每日简报

解码神经网络：基于因果解释与推理的针对性稳健分析AI 解读

Despite their success and widespread adoption, the opaque nature of deep neural networks (DNNs) continues to hinder trust, especially in critical applications. Current interpretability solutions often yield inconsistent or oversimplified explanations, or require model changes that compromise performance. In this work, we introduce TRACER, a novel method grounded in causal inference theory designed to estimate the causal dynamics underpinning DNN decisions without altering…

跨人群与研究设计比较 HIV 疫苗免疫原性AI 解读

Safe and effective preventive vaccines have the potential to help stem the HIV epidemic. The efficacy of such vaccines is typically measured in randomized, double-blind phase IIb/III trials and described as a reduction in newly acquired HIV infections. However, such trials are often expensive, time-consuming, and/or logistically challenging. These challenges lead to a great interest in immune responses induced by vaccination, and in identifying which immune responses predict…

利用因果不变贝叶斯神经网络实现稳健域泛化AI 解读

Deep neural networks can obtain impressive performance on various tasks under the assumption that their training domain is identical to their target domain. Performance can drop dramatically when this assumption does not hold. One explanation for this discrepancy is the presence of spurious domain-specific correlations in the training data that the network exploits. Causal mechanisms, in the other hand, can be made invariant under distribution changes as they allow…

未测量混杂下异质性处理效应的非参数直接学习方法AI 解读

In many social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, treatment effect estimation is a crucial step in understanding the impact of an intervention, policy, or treatment. In recent years, an increasing emphasis has been placed on heterogeneity in treatment effects, leading to the development of various methods for estimating Conditional Average Treatment Effects (CATE). These approaches hinge on a crucial identifying condition of no unmeasured confounding, an assumption that…

临床试验常用模式混合模型的直接估计AI 解读

Pattern-mixture models have received increasing attention as they are commonly used to assess treatment effects in primary or sensitivity analyses for clinical trials with nonignorable missing data. Pattern-mixture models have traditionally been implemented using multiple imputation, where the variance estimation may be a challenge because the Rubin's approach of combining between- and within-imputation variance may not provide consistent variance estimation while bootstrap…

利用多来源观察数据开展鲁棒离线策略学习AI 解读

We consider the problem of using observational bandit feedback data from multiple heterogeneous data sources to learn a personalized decision policy that robustly generalizes across diverse target settings. To achieve this, we propose a minimax regret optimization objective to ensure uniformly low regret under general mixtures of the source distributions. We develop a policy learning algorithm tailored to this objective, combining doubly robust offline policy evaluation…

度修正混合成员模型中参数的最优估计AI 解读

With the rise of big data, networks have pervaded many aspects of our daily lives, with applications ranging from the social to natural sciences. Understanding the latent structure of the network is thus an important question. In this paper, we model the network using a Degree-Corrected Mixed Membership (DCMM) model, in which every node $i$ has an affinity parameter $θ_i$, measuring the degree of connectivity, and an intrinsic membership probability vector $π_i = (π_1, \cdots π_K)$…

大规模纵向实验：估计与推断AI 解读

Large-scale randomized experiments are seldom analyzed using panel regression methods because of computational challenges arising from the presence of millions of nuisance parameters. We leverage Mundlak's insight that unit intercepts can be eliminated by using carefully chosen averages of the regressors to rewrite several common estimators in a form that is amenable to weighted-least squares estimation with frequency weights. This renders regressions involving arbitrary…

部分线性时变系数空间自回归面板模型的统计推断AI 解读

This paper investigates a partially linear spatial autoregressive panel data model that incorporates fixed effects, constant and time-varying regression coefficients, and a time-varying spatial lag coefficient. A two-stage least squares estimation method based on profile local linear dummy variables (2SLS-PLLDV) is proposed to estimate both constant and time-varying coefficients without the need for first differencing. The asymptotic properties of the estimator are derived…

检验参数可分模型的识别假设：条件矩不等式方法AI 解读

In this paper, we propose a simple method for testing identifying assumptions in parametric separable models, namely treatment exogeneity, instrument validity, and/or homoskedasticity. We show that the testable implications can be written in the intersection bounds framework, which is easy to implement using the inference method proposed in Chernozhukov, Lee, and Rosen (2013), and the Stata package of Chernozhukov et al. (2015). Monte Carlo simulations confirm that our test…

条件结果等价：条件平均处理效应的分位数替代方案AI 解读

Conditional quantile treatment effect (CQTE) can provide insight into the effect of a treatment beyond the conditional average treatment effect (CATE). This ability to provide information over multiple quantiles of the response makes CQTE especially valuable in cases where the effect of a treatment is not well-modelled by a location shift, even conditionally on the covariates. Nevertheless, the estimation of CQTE is challenging and often depends upon the smoothness of the…

短面板的简易交互固定效应估计量AI 解读

We study the interactive effects (IE) model as an extension of the conventional additive effects (AE) model. For the AE model, the fixed effects estimator can be obtained by applying least squares to a regression that adds a linear projection of the fixed effect on the explanatory variables (Mundlak, 1978; Chamberlain, 1984). In this paper, we develop a novel estimator -- the projection-based IE (PIE) estimator -- for the IE model that is based on a similar approach. We show…

实证博弈中的反事实分析AI 解读

We address counterfactual analysis in empirical models of games with partially identified parameters, and multiple equilibria and/or randomized strategies, by constructing and analyzing the counterfactual predictive distribution set (CPDS). This framework accommodates various outcomes of interest, including behavioral and welfare outcomes. It allows a variety of changes to the environment to generate the counterfactual, including modifications of the utility functions, the…

利用 HeartSteps 微随机试验的纵向函数数据建模移动健康干预的时变效应AI 解读

To optimize mobile health interventions and advance domain knowledge on intervention design, it is critical to understand how the intervention effect varies over time and with contextual information. This study aims to assess how a push notification suggesting physical activity influences individuals' step counts using data from the HeartSteps micro-randomized trial (MRT). The statistical challenges include the time-varying treatments and longitudinal functional step count…

基于贝叶斯方法的倾向得分分层估计器AI 解读

Subclassification estimators are one of the methods used to estimate causal effects of interest using the propensity score. This method is more stable compared to other weighting methods, such as inverse probability weighting estimators, in terms of the variance of the estimators. In subclassification estimators, the number of strata is traditionally set at five, and this number is not typically chosen based on data information. Even when the number of strata is selected,…

异质性处理效应估计中的缺失协变量问题AI 解读

Many applications of causal inference require using treatment effects estimated on a study population to make decisions in a separate target population. We consider the challenging setting where there are covariates that are observed in the target population that were not seen in the original study. Our goal is to estimate the tightest possible bounds on heterogeneous treatment effects conditioned on such newly observed covariates. We introduce a novel partial identification…

最大得分问题的贝叶斯视角AI 解读

This paper presents a Bayesian inference framework for a linear index threshold-crossing binary choice model that satisfies a median independence restriction. The key idea is that the model is observationally equivalent to a probit model with nonparametric heteroskedasticity. Consequently, Gibbs sampling techniques from Albert and Chib (1993) and Chib and Greenberg (2013) lead to a computationally attractive Bayesian inference procedure in which a Gaussian process forms a…

新型处理效应估计模型的消融研究AI 解读

Ablation studies are essential for understanding the contribution of individual components within complex models, yet their application in nonparametric treatment effect estimation remains limited. This paper emphasizes the importance of ablation studies by examining the Bayesian Causal Forest (BCF) model, particularly the inclusion of the estimated propensity score $\hatπ(x_i)$ intended to mitigate regularization-induced confounding (RIC). Through a partial ablation study…

无需显式雅可比矩阵的有效伪似然算法AI 解读

This study proposes a simple procedure to compute Efficient Pseudo Likelihood (EPL) estimator proposed by Dearing and Blevins (2024) for estimating dynamic discrete games, without computing Jacobians of equilibrium constraints. EPL estimator is efficient, convergent, and computationally fast. However, the original algorithm requires deriving and coding the Jacobians, which are cumbersome and prone to coding mistakes especially when considering complicated models. The current…

利用干预样本高效开展因果图的贝叶斯学习AI 解读

Causal discovery is a fundamental problem with applications spanning various areas in science and engineering. It is well understood that solely using observational data, one can only orient the causal graph up to its Markov equivalence class, necessitating interventional data to learn the complete causal graph. Most works in the literature design causal discovery policies with perfect interventions, i.e., they have access to infinite interventional samples. This study…

存在未测量中介—结局混杂时受控直接效应的稳健估计与模型选择AI 解读

Controlled Direct Effect (CDE) is one of the causal estimands used to evaluate both exposure and mediation effects on an outcome. When there are unmeasured confounders existing between the mediator and the outcome, the ordinary identification assumption does not work. In this manuscript, we consider an identification condition to identify CDE in the presence of unmeasured confounders. The key assumptions are: 1) the random allocation of the exposure, and 2) the existence of…

结局与协变量信息不完整时 HIV 照护留存的贝叶斯反事实预测AI 解读

Like many chronic diseases, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is managed over time at regular clinic visits. At each visit, patient features are assessed, treatments are prescribed, and a subsequent visit is scheduled. There is a need for data-driven methods for both predicting retention and recommending scheduling decisions that optimize retention. Prediction models can be useful for estimating retention rates across a range of scheduling options. However, training such…

利用核嵌入开展因果推断的研究概览AI 解读

Kernel embeddings have emerged as a powerful tool for representing probability measures in a variety of statistical inference problems. By mapping probability measures into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), kernel embeddings enable flexible representations of complex relationships between variables. They serve as a mechanism for efficiently transferring the representation of a distribution downstream to other tasks, such as hypothesis testing or causal effect…

QWO：加速线性高斯无环模型中的排列式因果发现AI 解读

Causal discovery is essential for understanding relationships among variables of interest in many scientific domains. In this paper, we focus on permutation-based methods for learning causal graphs in Linear Gaussian Acyclic Models (LiGAMs), where the permutation encodes a causal ordering of the variables. Existing methods in this setting are not scalable due to their high computational complexity. These methods are comprised of two main components: (i) constructing a…