Local Causal Discovery with Linear non-Gaussian Cyclic Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dai, Haoyue, Ng, Ignavier, Zheng, Yujia, Gao, Zhengqing, Zhang, Kun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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_version_ 1866929285857542144
author Dai, Haoyue
Ng, Ignavier
Zheng, Yujia
Gao, Zhengqing
Zhang, Kun
author_facet Dai, Haoyue
Ng, Ignavier
Zheng, Yujia
Gao, Zhengqing
Zhang, Kun
contents Local causal discovery is of great practical significance, as there are often situations where the discovery of the global causal structure is unnecessary, and the interest lies solely on a single target variable. Most existing local methods utilize conditional independence relations, providing only a partially directed graph, and assume acyclicity for the ground-truth structure, even though real-world scenarios often involve cycles like feedback mechanisms. In this work, we present a general, unified local causal discovery method with linear non-Gaussian models, whether they are cyclic or acyclic. We extend the application of independent component analysis from the global context to independent subspace analysis, enabling the exact identification of the equivalent local directed structures and causal strengths from the Markov blanket of the target variable. We also propose an alternative regression-based method in the particular acyclic scenarios. Our identifiability results are empirically validated using both synthetic and real-world datasets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_14843
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Local Causal Discovery with Linear non-Gaussian Cyclic Models
Dai, Haoyue
Ng, Ignavier
Zheng, Yujia
Gao, Zhengqing
Zhang, Kun
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Local causal discovery is of great practical significance, as there are often situations where the discovery of the global causal structure is unnecessary, and the interest lies solely on a single target variable. Most existing local methods utilize conditional independence relations, providing only a partially directed graph, and assume acyclicity for the ground-truth structure, even though real-world scenarios often involve cycles like feedback mechanisms. In this work, we present a general, unified local causal discovery method with linear non-Gaussian models, whether they are cyclic or acyclic. We extend the application of independent component analysis from the global context to independent subspace analysis, enabling the exact identification of the equivalent local directed structures and causal strengths from the Markov blanket of the target variable. We also propose an alternative regression-based method in the particular acyclic scenarios. Our identifiability results are empirically validated using both synthetic and real-world datasets.
title Local Causal Discovery with Linear non-Gaussian Cyclic Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14843