arXiv:2606.20912cs.AI2026-06

考虑隐藏变量的故障溯源新方法,提升复杂系统在数据少时的诊断可靠性。

Root Cause Analysis with Latent Confounders using Partial Ancestral Graphs

  • 基于部分因果图建模隐藏变量,用干预效应定位故障根源
  • 在效果可识别时精确排序候选原因,在不可识别时用边界分析评估
  • 适合数据稀缺或观测不全的工业系统故障诊断场景

故障溯源(RCA)对于识别异常根源、保障复杂系统可靠性至关重要。尽管因果理论已推动数据驱动的RCA发展,但现有框架假设因果充分性,未能考虑真实环境中普遍存在的未观测隐藏变量。为此,我们提出PAG-RCA,该框架将系统故障建模为对部分因果图(PAGs)的参数化干预,以在存在隐藏变量的情况下进行故障溯源。利用标准因果识别算法,通过量化PAG上的因果效应来寻找故障源头。当效应可识别时,候选根因按其精确干预效应排序;当效应结构上不可识别时,我们的框架(首次在RCA领域)引入部分识别,使用分析性因果边界对候选原因进行评估与打分。通过同时整合隐藏变量与部分识别,本框架在数据稀缺和存在隐藏变量的场景下仍能实现稳健的故障溯源。在合成数据、微服务异常基准和电网级联失效上的实验表明,PAG-RCA持续优于当前最先进的数据驱动基线。该方法在数据稀缺条件下提升了数据驱动故障溯源性能,推动了部分可观测复杂网络中可靠自动化诊断的发展。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Finding the source of failures, known as Root Cause Analysis (RCA), is essential for identifying the root causes of anomalies and maintaining the reliability of complex systems. While causal theory has advanced data-driven RCA, existing frameworks assume causal sufficiency, failing to account for the unobserved latent variables prevalent in real-world environments. To address this gap, we propose PAG-RCA. This framework models system failures as parametric interventions over Partial Ancestral Graphs (PAGs) to perform RCA in the presence of latent variables. We use standard causal identification algorithms to find the source of failures by quantifying causal effects over the PAG. When an effect is identifiable, candidate root causes are ranked based on their exact intervention effects. When effects are structurally unidentifiable, our framework (for the first time in the RCA literature) integrates partial identification to evaluate and score candidates using analytical causal bounds. By integrating latent variables and partial identification at once our framework ensures robust RCA even under data scarcity and latent-variable scenarios where traditional methods degrade. Evaluations on synthetic data, microservice anomaly benchmarks and power-grid cascading failures demonstrate that PAG-RCA consistently outperforms state-of-the-art data-driven baselines. By improving data-driven RCA performance under data scarcity, this methodology advances reliable automated diagnostics in partially observable complex networks.

故障溯源因果推断隐藏变量部分识别

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