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利用观察性、有偏与随机化数据学习反事实推断的界限AI 解读

We address the problem of integrating data from multiple, possibly biased, observational and interventional studies, to eventually compute counterfactuals in structural causal models. We start from the case of a single observational dataset affected by a selection bias. We show that the likelihood of the available data has no local maxima. This enables us to use the causal expectation-maximisation scheme to compute approximate bounds for partially identifiable counterfactual…

混合分布因子模型AI 解读

This paper proposes a new approach to estimating the distribution of a response variable conditioned on observing some factors. The proposed approach possesses desirable properties of flexibility, interpretability, tractability and extendability. The conditional quantile function is modeled by a mixture (weighted sum) of basis quantile functions, with the weights depending on factors. The calibration problem is formulated as a convex optimization problem. It can be viewed as…

线性结构方程模型中的祖先回归AI 解读

We present a new method for causal discovery in linear structural equation models. We propose a simple ``trick'' based on statistical testing in linear models that can distinguish between ancestors and non-ancestors of any given variable. Naturally, this can then be extended to estimating the causal order among all variables. We provide explicit error control for false causal discovery, at least asymptotically. This holds true even under Gaussianity, where other methods fail…

高维数据中的因果方向检验AI 解读

Determining causal relationship between high dimensional observations are among the most important tasks in scientific discoveries. In this paper, we revisited the \emph{linear trace method}, a technique proposed in~\citep{janzing2009telling,zscheischler2011testing} to infer the causal direction between two random variables of high dimensions. We strengthen the existing results significantly by providing an improved tail analysis in addition to extending the results to…

评估事件发生时间数据中治疗效应的非参数比例风险模型AI 解读

Time-to-event analysis often relies on prior parametric assumptions, or, if a non-parametric approach is chosen, Cox's model. This is inherently tied to the assumption of proportional hazards, with the analysis potentially invalidated if this assumption is not fulfilled. In addition, most interpretations focus on the hazard ratio, that is often misinterpreted as the relative risk. In this paper, we introduce an alternative to current methodology for assessing a treatment…

目标最大似然估计在公共卫生与流行病学中的应用：系统综述AI 解读

The Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation (TMLE) statistical data analysis framework integrates machine learning, statistical theory, and statistical inference to provide a least biased, efficient and robust strategy for estimation and inference of a variety of statistical and causal parameters. We describe and evaluate the epidemiological applications that have benefited from recent methodological developments. We conducted a systematic literature review in PubMed for…

加权估计的方差型敏感性分析与更具信息量的界限AI 解读

Weighting methods are popular tools for estimating causal effects; assessing their robustness under unobserved confounding is important in practice. In the following paper, we introduce a new set of sensitivity models called "variance-based sensitivity models". Variance-based sensitivity models characterize the bias from omitting a confounder by bounding the distributional differences that arise in the weights from omitting a confounder, with several notable innovations over…

政治学中已发表断点回归研究结果的可靠性AI 解读

The regression discontinuity (RD) design offers identification of causal effects under weak assumptions, earning it a position as a standard method in modern political science research. But identification does not necessarily imply that causal effects can be estimated accurately with limited data. In this paper, we highlight that estimation under the RD design involves serious statistical challenges and investigate how these challenges manifest themselves in the empirical…

暴露映射误设下的因果推断：分离效应定义与结构假设AI 解读

Exposure mappings facilitate investigations of complex causal effects when units interact in experiments. Current methods require experimenters to use the same exposure mappings both to define the effect of interest and to impose assumptions on the interference structure. However, the two roles rarely coincide in practice, and experimenters are forced to make the often questionable assumption that their exposures are correctly specified. This paper argues that the two roles…

矩阵型暴露因果效应估计中的加权欧氏平衡AI 解读

In many scientific fields such as biology, psychology and sociology, there is an increasing interest in estimating the causal effect of a matrix exposure on an outcome. Covariate balancing is crucial in causal inference and both exact balancing and approximate balancing methods have been proposed in the past decades. However, due to the large number of constraints, it is difficult to achieve exact balance or to select the threshold parameters for approximate balancing…

反事实 Copula 及其在大学教育与代际流动研究中的应用AI 解读

This paper proposes a nonparametric estimator of the counterfactual copula of two outcome variables that would be affected by a policy intervention. The proposed estimator allows policymakers to conduct ex-ante evaluations by comparing the estimated counterfactual and actual copulas as well as their corresponding measures of association. Asymptotic properties of the counterfactual copula estimator are established under regularity conditions. These conditions are also used to…

存在溢出时反事实邻域干预下的政策效应评估AI 解读

Policy interventions can spill over to units of a population that are not directly exposed to the policy but are geographically close to the units receiving the intervention. In recent work, investigations of spillover effects on neighboring regions have focused on estimating the average treatment effect of a particular policy in an observed setting. Our research question broadens this scope by asking what policy consequences would the treated units have experienced under…

半参数模型中未知参数方向的估计AI 解读

Semiparametric models are useful in econometrics, social sciences and medicine application. In this paper, a new estimator based on least square methods is proposed to estimate the direction of unknown parameters in semi-parametric models. The proposed estimator is consistent and has asymptotic distribution under mild conditions without the knowledge of the form of link function. Simulations show that the proposed estimator is significantly superior to maximum score…

欧洲教育机会不平等与代际流动AI 解读

Educational attainment generates labor market returns, societal gains and has intrinsic value for individuals. We study Inequality of Opportunity (IOp) and intergenerational mobility in the distribution of educational attainment. We propose to use debiased IOp estimators based on the Gini coefficient and the Mean Logarithmic Deviation (MLD) which are robust to machine learning biases. We also measure the effect of each circumstance on IOp, we provide tests to compare IOp in…

学习业务流程的干预时机：结合因果推断与强化学习的处方性流程监控AI 解读

Increasing the success rate of a process, i.e. the percentage of cases that end in a positive outcome, is a recurrent process improvement goal. At runtime, there are often certain actions (a.k.a. treatments) that workers may execute to lift the probability that a case ends in a positive outcome. For example, in a loan origination process, a possible treatment is to issue multiple loan offers to increase the probability that the customer takes a loan. Each treatment has a…

含大量协变量的大规模面板数据推断AI 解读

This paper proposes a novel testing procedure for selecting a sparse set of covariates that explains a large dimensional panel. Our selection method provides correct false detection control while having higher power than existing approaches. We develop the inferential theory for large panels with many covariates by combining post-selection inference with a novel multiple testing adjustment. Our data-driven hypotheses are conditional on the sparse covariate selection. We…

通过条件矩限制证伪观察性研究的内部与外部有效性AI 解读

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT)s are relied upon to assess new treatments, but suffer from limited power to guide personalized treatment decisions. On the other hand, observational (i.e., non-experimental) studies have large and diverse populations, but are prone to various biases (e.g. residual confounding). To safely leverage the strengths of observational studies, we focus on the problem of falsification, whereby RCTs are used to validate causal effect estimates…

使用 SpatialEffect 包开展存在干扰的空间实验推断AI 解读

This paper presents methods for analyzing spatial experiments when complex spillovers, displacement effects, and other types of "interference" are present. We present a robust, design-based approach to analyzing effects in such settings. The design-based approach derives inferential properties for causal effect estimators from known features of the experimental design, in a manner analogous to inference in sample surveys. The methods presented here target a quantity of…

含大量控制变量的删失分位数回归AI 解读

This paper develops estimation and inference methods for censored quantile regression models with high-dimensional controls. The methods are based on the application of double/debiased machine learning (DML) framework to the censored quantile regression estimator of Buchinsky and Hahn (1998). I provide valid inference for low-dimensional parameters of interest in the presence of high-dimensional nuisance parameters when implementing machine learning estimators. The proposed…

利用多元广义线性混合效应模型开展纵向数据因果推断AI 解读

Dynamic prediction of causal effects under different treatment regimes conditional on an individual's characteristics and longitudinal history is an essential problem in precision medicine. This is challenging in practice because outcomes and treatment assignment mechanisms are unknown in observational studies, an individual's treatment efficacy is a counterfactual, and the existence of selection bias is often unavoidable. We propose a Bayesian framework for identifying…

利用贝叶斯决策树集成估计异质性因果中介效应AI 解读

The causal inference literature has increasingly recognized that explicitly targeting treatment effect heterogeneity can lead to improved scientific understanding and policy recommendations. Towards the same ends, studying the causal pathway connecting the treatment to the outcome can be also useful. This paper addresses these problems in the context of \emph{causal mediation analysis}. We introduce a varying coefficient model based on Bayesian additive regression trees to…

对抗工具变量回归识别因果特征并增强网络鲁棒性AI 解读

The origin of adversarial examples is still inexplicable in research fields, and it arouses arguments from various viewpoints, albeit comprehensive investigations. In this paper, we propose a way of delving into the unexpected vulnerability in adversarially trained networks from a causal perspective, namely adversarial instrumental variable (IV) regression. By deploying it, we estimate the causal relation of adversarial prediction under an unbiased environment dissociated…

高维因果效应学习AI 解读

The scarcity of high-dimensional causal inference datasets restricts the exploration of complex deep models. In this work, we propose a method to generate a synthetic causal dataset that is high-dimensional. The synthetic data simulates a causal effect using the MNIST dataset with Bernoulli treatment values. This provides an opportunity to study varieties of models for causal effect estimation. We experiment on this dataset using Dragonnet architecture (Shi et al. (2019))…

利用阶段树开展类别数据的情境特定因果发现AI 解读

Causal discovery algorithms aim at untangling complex causal relationships from data. Here, we study causal discovery and inference methods based on staged tree models, which can represent complex and asymmetric causal relationships between categorical variables. We provide a first graphical representation of the equivalence class of a staged tree, by looking only at a specific subset of its underlying independences. We further define a new pre-metric, inspired by the widely…