arXiv:2504.01551cs.AI2025-04中稿 · TMLR被引 3

在不完全因果图中识别集群间影响,为医学等复杂领域提供新方法。

Identifying Macro Causal Effects in a C-DMG over ADMGs

  • 基于聚类混合图(C-DMG)提出宏观因果效应识别方法。
  • 证明了do演算在集群大小未知或大于1时对宏观效应完全有效。
  • 揭示了宏观因果效应不可识别的图形特征,适用于医学建模场景。

因果效应识别是因果推断的核心挑战。现有方法多假设已知完整的有向无环图或无环混合图,但在医学、流行病学等复杂领域,完整因果知识往往不可得,仅能获得部分信息。本文聚焦于部分指定因果图中的因果效应识别,特别关注可表示多种无环混合图(ADMGs)的聚类混合图(C-DMG)。这类图通过将变量分组形成簇,以更高层次表达因果关系,更适用于复杂系统建模。与完全指定的ADMG不同,C-DMG可能包含循环,分析更具挑战性;其簇结构还引出两种不同类型的因果效应:宏观效应与微观效应。本文重点研究宏观效应,即一个簇对另一簇的影响。我们证明,在簇大小未知或大于1的情况下,do演算对这类宏观效应是保真且完备的。此外,我们给出了宏观效应不可识别的图形刻画。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Causal effect identification using causal graphs is a fundamental challenge in causal inference. While extensive research has been conducted in this area, most existing methods assume the availability of fully specified directed acyclic graphs or acyclic directed mixed graphs. However, in complex domains such as medicine and epidemiology, complete causal knowledge is often unavailable, and only partial information about the system is accessible. This paper focuses on causal effect identification within partially specified causal graphs, with particular emphasis on cluster-directed mixed graphs (C-DMGs) which can represent many different acyclic directed mixed graphs (ADMGs). These graphs provide a higher-level representation of causal relationships by grouping variables into clusters, offering a more practical approach for handling complex systems. Unlike fully specified ADMGs, C-DMGs can contain cycles, which complicate their analysis and interpretation. Furthermore, their cluster-based nature introduces new challenges, as it gives rise to two distinct types of causal effects: macro causal effects and micro causal effects, each with different properties. In this work, we focus on macro causal effects, which describe the effects of entire clusters on other clusters. We establish that the do-calculus is both sound and complete for identifying these effects in C-DMGs over ADMGs when the cluster sizes are either unknown or of size greater than one. Additionally, we provide a graphical characterization of non-identifiability for macro causal effects in these graphs.

因果推断图模型医学建模

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