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This paper considers inference of causal structure in a class of graphical models called "conditional DAGs". These are directed acyclic graph (DAG) models with two kinds of variables, primary and secondary. The secondary variables are used…

Methodology · Statistics 2014-11-12 Chris J. Oates , Jim Q. Smith , Sach Mukherjee

Background: Diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies, like etiological studies, are susceptible to various biases including reference standard error bias, partial verification bias, spectrum effect, confounding, and bias from misassumption of…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-01-21 Yang Lu , Nandini Dendukuri

The d-separation criterion detects the compatibility of a joint probability distribution with a directed acyclic graph through certain conditional independences. In this work, we study this problem in the context of categorical probability…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-02-21 Tobias Fritz , Andreas Klingler

We propose a novel score-based approach to learning a directed acyclic graph (DAG) from observational data. We adapt a recently proposed continuous constrained optimization formulation to allow for nonlinear relationships between variables…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-19 Sébastien Lachapelle , Philippe Brouillard , Tristan Deleu , Simon Lacoste-Julien

We consider graphs that represent pairwise marginal independencies amongst a set of variables (for instance, the zero entries of a covariance matrix for normal data). We characterize the directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that faithfully…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-08-04 Johannes Textor , Alexander Idelberger , Maciej Liśkiewicz

In causal graphical models based on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), directed paths represent causal pathways between the corresponding variables. The variable at the beginning of such a path is referred to as an ancestor of the variable at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-24 Wenyu Chen , Mathias Drton , Ali Shojaie

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are frequently used in epidemiology as a method to encode causal inference assumptions. We propose the DAGWOOD framework to bring many of those encoded assumptions to the forefront. DAGWOOD combines a root DAG…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-11-25 Noah A Haber , Mollie E Wood , Sarah Wieten , Alexander Breskin

The concept of d-separation holds a pivotal role in causality theory, serving as a fundamental tool for deriving conditional independence properties from causal graphs. Pearl defined the d-separation of two subsets conditionally on a third…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2024-04-03 Jean-Philippe Chancelier , Michel de Lara , Benjamin Heymann

Cluster DAGs (C-DAGs) provide an abstraction of causal graphs in which nodes represent clusters of variables, and edges encode both cluster-level causal relationships and dependencies arisen from unobserved confounding. C-DAGs define an…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-11-04 Clément Yvernes , Emilie Devijver , Adèle H. Ribeiro , Marianne Clausel--Lesourd , Éric Gaussier

Causal inference with observational data critically relies on untestable and extra-statistical assumptions that have (sometimes) testable implications. Well-known sets of assumptions that are sufficient to justify the causal interpretation…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-02-20 Pablo Geraldo Bastías

The recent works on causal discovery have followed a similar trend of learning partial ancestral graphs (PAGs) since observational data constrain the true causal directed acyclic graph (DAG) only up to a Markov equivalence class. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Tingrui Huang , Devendra Singh Dhami

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) encode a lot of information about a particular distribution in their structure. However, compute required to infer these structures is typically super-exponential in the number of variables, as inference…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-13 Jeroen Berrevoets , Nabeel Seedat , Fergus Imrie , Mihaela van der Schaar

In this review, we discuss approaches for learning causal structure from data, also called causal discovery. In particular, we focus on approaches for learning directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and various generalizations which allow for some…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-12-20 Chandler Squires , Caroline Uhler

We present a graphical approach to deriving inequality constraints for directed acyclic graph (DAG) models, where some variables are unobserved. In particular we show that the observed distribution of a discrete model is always restricted…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2012-09-14 Robin J. Evans

In this article, we propose a new hypothesis testing method for directed acyclic graph (DAG). While there is a rich class of DAG estimation methods, there is a relative paucity of DAG inference solutions. Moreover, the existing methods…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-05-25 Chengchun Shi , Yunzhe Zhou , Lexin Li

An algorithm for generating the structure of a directed acyclic graph from data using the notion of causal input lists is presented. The algorithm manipulates the ordering of the variables with operations which very much resemble arc…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-03-25 Remco R. Bouckaert

Estimating the structure of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of features (variables) plays a vital role in revealing the latent data generation process and providing causal insights in various applications. Although there have been many…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-06 Shaohua Fan , Shuyang Zhang , Xiao Wang , Chuan Shi

We make the case for incorporating a notion of time into causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). We demonstrate that nontemporal causal DAGs are ambiguous and obstruct justification of the acyclicity assumption. Assuming that causes precede…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-04-22 Alexander G. Reisach , Alberto Suárez , Sebastian Weichwald , Antoine Chambaz

We extend the theory of d-separation to cases in which data instances are not independent and identically distributed. We show that applying the rules of d-separation directly to the structure of probabilistic models of relational data…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-01-07 Marc Maier , Katerina Marazopoulou , David Jensen

Causal discovery, the learning of causality in a data mining scenario, has been of strong scientific and theoretical interest as a starting point to identify "what causes what?" Contingent on assumptions and a proper learning algorithm, it…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-05-23 Gabriel Ruiz , Oscar Hernan Madrid Padilla , Qing Zhou