UAI 2020poster8 citations

Causal screening in dynamical systems

Søren Wengel Mogensen

Abstract

Many classical algorithms output graphical representations of causal structures by testing conditional independence among a set of random variables. In dynamical systems, local independence can be used analogously as a testable implication of the underlying data-generating process. We suggest some inexpensive methods for causal screening which provide output with a sound causal interpretation under the assumption of ancestral faithfulness. The popular model class of linear Hawkes processes is used to provide an example of a dynamical causal model. We argue that for sparse causal graphs the output will often be close to complete. We give examples of this framework and apply it to a challenging biological system.

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v124-wengel-mogensen20a,
  title = 	 {Causal screening in dynamical systems},
  author =       {Wengel Mogensen, S\o{}ren},
  booktitle = 	 {Proceedings of the 36th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)},
  pages = 	 {310--319},
  year = 	 {2020},
  editor = 	 {Peters, Jonas and Sontag, David},
  volume = 	 {124},
  series = 	 {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research},
  month = 	 {03--06 Aug},
  publisher =    {PMLR},
  pdf = 	 {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v124/wengel-mogensen20a/wengel-mogensen20a.pdf},
  url = 	 {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v124/wengel-mogensen20a.html},
  abstract = 	 {Many classical algorithms output graphical representations of causal structures by testing conditional independence among a set of random variables. In dynamical systems, local independence can be used analogously as a testable implication of the underlying data-generating process. We suggest some inexpensive methods for causal screening which provide output with a sound causal interpretation under the assumption of ancestral faithfulness. The popular model class of linear Hawkes processes is used to provide an example of a dynamical causal model. We argue that for sparse causal graphs the output will often be close to complete. We give examples of this framework and apply it to a challenging biological system.}
}
Causal screening in dynamical systems · UAI 2020