每日简报

因果推断中的结构方程模型与贝叶斯网络整合：积极青少年发展案例AI 解读

In this study, the combined use of structural equation modeling (SEM) and Bayesian network modeling (BNM) in causal inference analysis is revisited. The perspective highlights the debate between proponents of using BNM as either an exploratory phase or even as the sole phase in the definition of structural models, and those advocating for SEM as the superior alternative for exploratory analysis. The individual strengths and limitations of SEM and BNM are recognized, but this…

重尾时间序列条件分位数的非参数估计AI 解读

We propose a modified weighted Nadaraya-Watson estimator for the conditional distribution of a time series with heavy tails. We establish the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator. Simulation study is carried out to assess the performance of the estimator. We illustrate our method using a dataset.

面向多个二元结局的 W-method 与 A-learner 扩展AI 解读

In this study, we compared two groups, in which subjects were assigned to either the treatment or the control group. In such trials, if the efficacy of the treatment cannot be demonstrated in a population that meets the eligibility criteria, identifying the subgroups for which the treatment is effective is desirable. Such subgroups can be identified by estimating heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE). In recent years, methods for estimating HTE have increasingly relied on…

利用无信号模板检验周期显著性：重新评估 PTF 超大质量黑洞双星候选AI 解读

Periodograms are widely employed for identifying periodicity in time series data, yet they often struggle to accurately quantify the statistical significance of detected periodic signals when the data complexity precludes reliable simulations. We develop a data-driven approach to address this challenge by introducing a null-signal template (NST). The NST is created by carefully randomizing the period of each cycle in the periodogram template, rendering it non-periodic. It…

用于肿瘤免疫治疗临床试验的半参数分段加速失效时间模型AI 解读

Effectiveness of immune-oncology chemotherapies has been presented in recent clinical trials. The Kaplan-Meier estimates of the survival functions of the immune therapy and the control often suggested the presence of the lag-time until the immune therapy began to act. It implies the use of hazard ratio under the proportional hazards assumption would not be appealing, and many alternatives have been investigated such as the restricted mean survival time. In addition to such…

从小样本开始：利用精确有限样本似然在随机试验中优先考虑安全性AI 解读

We use the exact finite sample likelihood and statistical decision theory to answer questions of ``why?'' and ``what should you have done?'' using data from randomized experiments and a utility function that prioritizes safety over efficacy. We propose a finite sample Bayesian decision rule and a finite sample maximum likelihood decision rule. We show that in finite samples from 2 to 50, it is possible for these rules to achieve better performance according to established…

nph2ph 变换及其在已完成临床试验统计分析中的应用AI 解读

We present several illustrations from completed clinical trials on a statistical approach that allows us to gain useful insights regarding the time dependency of treatment effects. Our approach leans on a simple proposition: all non-proportional hazards (NPH) models are equivalent to a proportional hazards model. The nph2ph transform brings an NPH model into a PH form. We often find very simple approximations for this transform, enabling us to analyze complex NPH…

利用随机反事实与结局不一致双生子部分识别平均治疗效应AI 解读

We develop a novel approach to partially identify causal estimands, such as the average treatment effect (ATE), from observational data. To better satisfy the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) we utilize stochastic counterfactuals within a propensity-prognosis model of the data generating process. For more precise identification we utilize knowledge of discordant twin outcomes as evidence for randomness in the data generating process. Our approach culminates…

无效工具变量下的识别与推断AI 解读

Instrumental variables (IVs) are widely used to study the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome in the presence of unmeasured confounding. IVs require an instrument, a variable that is (A1) associated with the exposure, (A2) has no direct effect on the outcome except through the exposure, and (A3) is not related to unmeasured confounders. Unfortunately, finding variables that satisfy conditions (A2) or (A3) can be challenging in practice. This paper reviews works where…

利用平均场方法估计网络干扰下的因果效应AI 解读

We study causal effect estimation from observational data under interference. The interference pattern is captured by an observed network. We adopt the chain graph framework of Tchetgen Tchetgen et. al. (2021), which allows (i) interaction among the outcomes of distinct study units connected along the graph and (ii) long range interference, whereby the outcome of an unit may depend on the treatments assigned to distant units connected along the interference network. For…

多重矩等式检验的功效增强：超越二范数与无穷范数AI 解读

Contemporary testing problems in statistics are increasingly complex, i.e., high-dimensional. Tests based on the $2$- and $\infty$-norm have received considerable attention in such settings, as they are powerful against dense and sparse alternatives, respectively. The power enhancement principle of Fan et al. (2015) combines these two norms to construct improved tests that are powerful against both types of alternatives. In the context of testing whether a candidate…

用总误差幅度衡量选举民调的非抽样误差：无应答情形AI 解读

The potential impact of non-sampling errors on election polls is well known, but measurement has focused on the margin of sampling error. Survey statisticians have long recommended measurement of total survey error by mean square error (MSE), which jointly measures sampling and non-sampling errors. We think it reasonable to use the square root of maximum MSE to measure the total margin of error (TME). Measurement of TME should encompass both sampling error and all forms of…

带群组识别的高维因子模型惩罚主成分分析AI 解读

This paper investigates the intrinsic group structures within the framework of large-dimensional approximate factor models, which portrays homogeneous effects of the common factors on the individuals that fall into the same group. To this end, we propose a fusion Penalized Principal Component Analysis (PPCA) method and derive a closed-form solution for the $\ell_2$-norm optimization problem. We also show the asymptotic properties of our proposed PPCA estimates. With the PPCA…

基于得分匹配的线性、非线性与潜变量因果发现AI 解读

Causal discovery from observational data holds great promise, but existing methods rely on strong assumptions about the underlying causal structure, often requiring full observability of all relevant variables. We tackle these challenges by leveraging the score function $\nabla \log p(X)$ of observed variables for causal discovery and propose the following contributions. First, we fine-tune the existing identifiability results with the score on additive noise models, showing…

通过 Pearson 风险不变性识别因果广义线性模型AI 解读

Prediction invariance of causal models under heterogeneous settings has been exploited by a number of recent methods for causal discovery, typically focussing on recovering the causal parents of a target variable of interest. Existing methods require observational data from a number of sufficiently different environments, which is rarely available. In this paper, we consider a structural equation model where the target variable is described by a generalized linear model…

将因果推断形式化为目标总体上的预测AI 解读

The standard approach to causal modelling especially in social and health sciences is the potential outcomes framework due to Neyman and Rubin. In this framework, observations are thought to be drawn from a distribution over variables of interest, and the goal is to identify parameters of this distribution. Even though the stated goal is often to inform decision making on some target population, there is no straightforward way to include these target populations in the…

利用辅助总体工具变量识别因果效应与多重稳健估计AI 解读

Estimating causal effects in a target population with unmeasured confounders is challenging, especially when instrumental variables (IVs) are unavailable. However, IVs from auxiliary populations with similar problems can help infer causal effects in the target population. While the homogeneous conditional average treatment effect assumption has been widely used for effect transportability, it has not been explored in IV-based data fusion. We include it as a basic approach,…

数字健康干预中的可重复多臂老虎机算法AI 解读

Adaptive treatment assignment algorithms, such as bandit algorithms, are increasingly used in digital health intervention clinical trials. Frequently, the data collected from these trials is used to conduct causal inference and related data analyses to decide how to refine the intervention, and whether to roll-out the intervention more broadly. This work studies inference for estimands that depend on the adaptive algorithm itself; a simple example is the mean reward under…

引入多个交替阈值的 Finkelstein–Schoenfeld 检验推广AI 解读

Composite endpoints consisting of both terminal and non-terminal events, such as death and hospitalization, are frequently used in cardiovascular clinical trials. The Finkelstein-Schoenfeld (FS) test provides a way to employ a hierarchical structure to combine fatal and non-fatal events by giving death information an absolute priority, which may limit the contribution of clinically meaningful non-fatal events. To provide a more flexible alternative, we propose the…

伯努利缺失值生成法AI 解读

A novel, stochastic approach to amputation, the process of introducing missing values to a complete dataset, is presented. It allows one to construct a wide variety of missingness patterns by only having to specify distributions of missingness indicators as opposed to specifying each missingness pattern manually. Missingness indicators are modeled in a principled way via copulas and Bernoulli margins, thus allowing one to incorporate dependence in missingness patterns.…

竞争风险生存结局的亚组平均处理效应双重稳健目标估计AI 解读

In recent years, precision treatment strategies have gained significant attention in medical research, particularly for patient care. We propose a novel framework for estimating subgroup average treatment effects (ATE) in time-to-event data with competing risks, using ICU patients with sepsis as an illustrative example. Our approach, based on cumulative incidence functions and targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE), achieves both asymptotic efficiency and double…

随机实验中分布处理效应的估计：利用机器学习降低方差AI 解读

We propose a novel regression adjustment method designed for estimating distributional treatment effect parameters in randomized experiments. Randomized experiments have been extensively used to estimate treatment effects in various scientific fields. However, to gain deeper insights, it is essential to estimate distributional treatment effects rather than relying solely on average effects. Our approach incorporates pre-treatment covariates into a distributional regression…

利用随机分块网络对 VAR 精度矩阵进行贝叶斯建模AI 解读

Commonly used priors for Vector Autoregressions (VARs) induce shrinkage on the autoregressive coefficients. Introducing shrinkage on the error covariance matrix is sometimes done but, in the vast majority of cases, without considering the network structure of the shocks and by placing the prior on the lower Cholesky factor of the precision matrix. In this paper, we propose a prior on the VAR error precision matrix directly. Our prior, which resembles a standard spike and…

一般干预下结局条件化偏效应的识别与推断AI 解读

This paper proposes a new class of distributional causal quantities, referred to as the \textit{outcome conditioned partial policy effects} (OCPPEs), to measure the \textit{average} effect of a general counterfactual intervention of a target covariate on the individuals in different quantile ranges of the outcome distribution. The OCPPE approach is valuable in several aspects: (i) Unlike the unconditional quantile partial effect (UQPE) that is not $\sqrt{n}$-estimable, an…