English

MultiFun-DAG: Multivariate Functional Directed Acyclic Graph

Methodology 2024-04-23 v1

Abstract

Directed Acyclic Graphical (DAG) models efficiently formulate causal relationships in complex systems. Traditional DAGs assume nodes to be scalar variables, characterizing complex systems under a facile and oversimplified form. This paper considers that nodes can be multivariate functional data and thus proposes a multivariate functional DAG (MultiFun-DAG). It constructs a hidden bilinear multivariate function-to-function regression to describe the causal relationships between different nodes. Then an Expectation-Maximum algorithm is used to learn the graph structure as a score-based algorithm with acyclic constraints. Theoretical properties are diligently derived. Prudent numerical studies and a case study from urban traffic congestion analysis are conducted to show MultiFun-DAG's effectiveness.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.13836,
  title  = {MultiFun-DAG: Multivariate Functional Directed Acyclic Graph},
  author = {Tian Lan and Ziyue Li and Junpeng Lin and Zhishuai Li and Lei Bai and Man Li and Fugee Tsung and Rui Zhao and Chen Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.13836},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:01:41.445Z