提出新方法FANTOM,能同时识别非平稳时间序列中的因果结构和突变段。
Flow based approach for Dynamic Temporal Causal models with non-Gaussian or Heteroscedastic Noises
- 用贝叶斯EM算法联合学习多个时段的因果图与突变点位置
- 在合成与真实数据上均优于现有方法,准确识别非高斯、异方差噪声下的因果关系
- 适用于金融、脑神经等存在多阶段变化的时序数据分析
理解多变量时间序列中的因果关系在金融或神经科学等场景中至关重要。许多时间序列包含多个未知边界的时间段,每个时段具有不同的因果结构。准确推断因果依赖和时段突变对分析底层过程极为关键。然而,由于(1)非平稳性——每段可能有独立的因果图与混合函数,以及(2)复杂噪声分布(如非高斯或异方差),现有因果发现方法难以应对,因其通常假设平稳性或恒定方差的高斯噪声。为此,我们提出FANTOM,一个统一框架,可处理非平稳过程及非高斯、异方差噪声。FANTOM同时推断时段数量与对应索引,并学习各时段的有向无环图(DAG)。该方法采用贝叶斯期望最大化算法,最大化数据对数似然的证据下界。理论上,在温和假设下,证明了引入的时变异方差因果模型在平稳与非平稳设置下均可识别。大量实验表明,FANTOM在合成与真实数据上均显著优于现有方法。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Understanding causal relationships in multivariate time series is crucial in many scenarios, such as those dealing with financial or neurological data. Many such time series exhibit multiple regimes, i.e., consecutive temporal segments with a priori unknown boundaries, with each regime having its own causal structure. Inferring causal dependencies and regime shifts is critical for analyzing the underlying processes. However, causal structure learning in this setting is challenging due to (1) non-stationarity, i.e., each regime can have its own causal graph and mixing function, and (2) complex noise distributions, which may be nonGaussian or heteroscedastic. Existing causal discovery approaches cannot address these challenges, since generally assume stationarity or Gaussian noise with constant variance. Hence, we introduce FANTOM, a unified framework for causal discovery that handles non-stationary processes along with non-Gaussian and heteroscedastic noises. FANTOM simultaneously infers the number of regimes and their corresponding indices and learns each regime's Directed Acyclic Graph. It uses a Bayesian Expectation Maximization algorithm that maximizes the evidence lower bound of the data log-likelihood. On the theoretical side, we prove, under mild assumptions, that temporal heteroscedastic causal models, introduced in FANTOM's formulation, are identifiable in both stationary and non-stationary settings. In addition, extensive experiments on synthetic and real data show that FANTOM outperforms existing methods.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。