Paper relaxes identifiability conditions for causal models with latent variables.
problem Challenges in identifying causal graphical models with latent variables.
method Proposes a double triangular graphical condition for nonparametric measurement models with binary latent variables.
result Guarantees identifiability of the entire causal graphical model under relaxed conditions.
New method for fitting graphical models with latent variables using regularized conditional likelihood.
problem Graphical modeling with latent variables and confounding dependencies.
method Regularized conditional likelihood for exponential family graphical models.
result Framework applicable to broader settings without knowing latent variables' distribution.
There has been much recent, exciting work on combining the complementary strengths of latent variable models and deep learning. Latent variable modeling makes it easy to explicitly specify model constraints through conditional independence properties, while deep learning makes it possible to parameterize these conditio…
New method learns graphical models with latent variables for extreme events.
problem Learning graphical models with latent variables for multivariate extremes.
method Tractable convex program exttt{eglatent} for Hüsler-Reiss models.
result Consistently recovers conditional graph and latent variables.
New method identifies latent causal variables from observed data, overcoming indeterminacies.
problem Identifying latent causal variables from observed data, especially when latent variables are weight-variant.
method Introduces a novel identifiability condition for latent causal models, proposing SuaVE method.
result Identifies latent causal variables up to trivial permutation and scaling, demonstrating consistency and efficacy.
ACE models allow flexible conditioning and prediction of latent variables.
problem Lack of flexibility in conditioning and prediction of latent variables in probabilistic models.
method Introduces Amortized Conditioning Engine (ACE) that explicitly represents latent variables and allows runtime conditioning and prediction.
result ACE models outperform existing methods in diverse tasks like image completion, classification, Bayesian optimization, and simulation-based inference.
Quantitatively assessing relationships between latent variables and observed variables is important for understanding and developing generative models and representation learning. In this paper, we propose latent-observed dissimilarity (LOD) to evaluate the dissimilarity between the probabilistic characteristics of lat…
Concept modulation models unify identifiability and extrapolation in conditional latent variable models.
problem Reliable generalization in conditional latent variable models
method Concept modulation models (CMMs) with structure AoΛoCoX result Lifts identifiability to conditional settings and controls extrapolation through attribute potentials.
Proposes a new condition to estimate latent variable causal graphs from observed data.
problem Estimating causal structures when observed variables are not the underlying causal variables.
method Introduces Generalized Independent Noise (GIN) condition and a recursive learning algorithm.
result Shows that GIN helps locate latent variables and identify their causal structure.
Ising models describe the joint probability distribution of a vector of binary feature variables. Typically, not all the variables interact with each other and one is interested in learning the presumably sparse network structure of the interacting variables. However, in the presence of latent variables, the convention…
We analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions for exact inference of a latent model. In latent models, each entity is associated with a latent variable following some probability distribution. The challenging question we try to solve is: can we perform exact inference without observing the latent variables, even w…
New method identifies latent relationships in deep models without additional constraints.
problem Latent representations in deep latent variable models are not statistically identifiable.
method Identifies relationships between latent variables (distances, angles, volumes) under mild model conditions.
result Empirically demonstrates more reliable latent distances without additional labeled data.
The paper tackles causal disentanglement with linear models and interventions.
problem Identify latent variables in a causal model from observed data.
method Use linear transformations and interventions to uniquely identify latent variables.
result A single intervention on each latent variable is sufficient for identifying the latent causal model.
Develops a method to identify causal effects in linear models with latent variables.
problem Identifying causal effects in models with latent variables that are not independent.
method A novel graphical criterion and an integer linear program algorithm.
result Sufficient condition for identifying causal effects by rational formulas in the covariance matrix.
We address the problem of one-to-many mappings in supervised learning, where a single instance has many different solutions of possibly equal cost. The framework of conditional variational autoencoders describes a class of methods to tackle such structured-prediction tasks by means of latent variables. We propose to in…
GEEN uses deep learning to estimate unobserved variables from observed data.
problem Estimating unobserved variables in latent variable models.
method GEEN uses deep learning with Kullback-Leibler distance to map observed measurements to latent variable realizations.
result GEEN provides a method to identify and estimate latent variables in a class of models.
New method identifies causes in time series with latent variables.
problem Identifying direct and indirect causes in time series data with hidden variables.
method Proves necessary and sufficient conditions for causal feature selection using graph constraints and conditional independence tests.
result Method outperforms Granger causality in identifying causes with low false positives and false negatives.
New method improves generative model performance by fully conditioning variational posteriors.
problem Inaccurate inference due to partial conditioning of variational posteriors in sequential LVMs.
method Introduces fully-conditioned approximate posteriors to improve generative model performance.
result Improves generative modelling and multi-step prediction performance.
Paper models graph edge dependencies using latent variables for community detection.
problem Graphs' edge dependencies not fully explained by community membership.
method Introduces auxiliary latent variables to model edge dependencies and analyzes conditions for exact recovery.
result Exact recovery possible by semidefinite programming down to maximum likelihood threshold.
We consider the problem of extracting a low-dimensional, linear latent variable structure from high-dimensional random variables. Specifically, we show that under mild conditions and when this structure manifests itself as a linear space that spans the conditional means, it is possible to consistently recover the struc…
We consider the problem of covariance matrix estimation in the presence of latent variables. Under suitable conditions, it is possible to learn the marginal covariance matrix of the observed variables via a tractable convex program, where the concentration matrix of the observed variables is decomposed into a sparse ma…
A new method for efficient inference in sequential latent-variable models.
problem Computational challenges in integrating subject-specific random effects.
method Anchored variational inference framework to approximate posterior distributions.
result The method achieves accurate estimation with significant computational gains.
Graphical models are commonly used tools for modeling multivariate random variables. While there exist many convenient multivariate distributions such as Gaussian distribution for continuous data, mixed data with the presence of discrete variables or a combination of both continuous and discrete variables poses new cha…
The framework of variational autoencoders allows us to efficiently learn deep latent-variable models, such that the model's marginal distribution over observed variables fits the data. Often, we're interested in going a step further, and want to approximate the true joint distribution over observed and latent variables…
This work extends identifiability analysis to sequential latent variable models, focusing on Switching Dynamical Systems.
problem Identifying latent variables in sequential data models.
method Proved identifiability of Markov Switching Models and established conditions for Switching Dynamical Systems.
result Identifiability of latent variables and non-linear mappings in Switching Dynamical Systems up to affine transformations.
In this paper we propose a unified framework for structured prediction with latent variables which includes hidden conditional random fields and latent structured support vector machines as special cases. We describe a local entropy approximation for this general formulation using duality, and derive an efficient messa…
Improved robust latent variable estimation for neural dynamics.
problem Inconsistent results due to noise and nonlinearity in existing models.
method Probabilistic approach to latent variable estimation in decomposed models.
result More accurate latent variable inference in nonlinear systems with diverse noise conditions.
GFlowNet-EM learns complex latent variable models with discrete structures.
problem Challenges in modeling posteriors over discrete compositional latents with expectation-maximization.
method Uses GFlowNets to learn stochastic policies for sampling from complex posterior distributions.
result GFlowNet-EM enables training expressive LVMs with discrete compositional latents.
Study reconstructs causal graph from latent variables using mixture oracles.
problem Reconstructing causal graphical model from data with latent variables.
method Reduction to mixture oracle to identify latent representations and causal structure.
result Conditions for identifying latent representations and causal model.
Generative models learn latent process to match target distributions.
problem Training flow-matching models with auxiliary stochastic dynamics.
method Introduces latent process generator matching, treating generative state as a deterministic image of a Markov process.
result Learn generator of a stochastic process with same marginal distributions.
Proposes a new approach to MSDA by introducing latent covariate shift to handle varying label distributions.
problem Challenges of conventional MSDA approaches in real-world settings where label distributions vary across domains.
method Introduces latent covariate shift (LCS) and a causal generative model with latent noises, latent content variable, and latent style variable.
result Identifies latent content variable up to block identifiability, enabling more nuanced label distribution recovery.
Given a set of experiments in which varying subsets of observed variables are subject to intervention, we consider the problem of identifiability of causal models exhibiting latent confounding. While identifiability is trivial when each experiment intervenes on a large number of variables, the situation is more complic…
LCIT tests conditional independence using latent representations.
problem Detecting conditional independencies in statistical and machine learning tasks.
method Generative framework for learning latent representations of target variables X and Y, then testing for remaining dependencies.
result LCIT outperforms state-of-the-art baselines consistently under different metrics and settings.
A new framework estimates causal effects for ordinal variables.
problem Existing causal inference methods fail for ordinal data.
method Presumes a latent Gaussian DAG model with constrained covariance matrix.
result Closed-form function for ordinal causal effects in latent space.
Probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA) is a method used for biometric problems like speaker or face recognition that models the variability of the samples using two latent variables, one that depends on the class of the sample and another one that is assumed independent across samples and models the within-c…
New score-based methods identify causal structures with latent variables.
problem Identifying causal structures involving latent variables.
method Score-based methods with identifiability guarantees.
result Score equivalence and consistency for latent variable causal models.
Study nonparametric factor analysis with arbitrary noise.
problem Identify latent variables in noisy, non-invertible settings.
method Developed a general framework and estimation methods.
result Identify latent variables up to certain indeterminacies.
A-VI can approximate F-VI under certain conditions, improving inference in some models.
problem Approximate Bayesian inference using factorized distributions.
method Amortized variational inference (A-VI) learns a common inference function for latent variables.
result A-VI can close the amortization gap in simple hierarchical models.
New method for LVEBMs using saddle-point optimization and Langevin updates.
problem Expressive generative modeling of latent variables with hidden structure.
method Reformulate LVEBM training as a saddle problem, using Langevin updates and gradient flows.
result Proves existence and convergence of the algorithm under standard assumptions, with improved ELBO bounds.
LEAP identifies latent causal variables from temporal data.
problem Recovering time-delayed latent causal variables from general temporal data.
method Proposes LEAP, a framework that extends VAEs with constraints for temporally causal latent processes.
result Successfully identifies temporally causal latent processes from observed variables under various dependency structures.
Develops SCMs for latent selection to simplify causal analysis.
problem Latent selection complicates causal analysis.
method Introduces a conditioning operation for SCMs to encode latent selection.
result Conditioning operation preserves simplicity, acyclicity, and linearity of SCMs.
We use the score function for causal discovery, tackling challenges with hidden variables.
problem Causal discovery from observational data with hidden variables.
method Fine-tuning identifiability results, establishing conditions for inferring causal relations from the score, proposing a flexible algorithm.
result Empirical validation of the proposed algorithm for causal discovery on linear, nonlinear, and latent variable models.
Proposes a transfer learning method for accurate latent variable estimation.
problem Accurate estimation of latent variables in networks with large parameter spaces.
method Leverages information from similar networks to improve estimation accuracy.
result The proposed methods improve estimation accuracy and are validated on real datasets.
Method learns latent SDEs from high-dimensional time series.
problem Learning latent stochastic differential equations from time series data.
method Self-supervised learning with variational autoencoders and Euler-Maruyama approximation.
result Can recover SDE coefficients and latent variables up to isometry with infinite data.
Formalizes concepts as latent variables in hierarchical models for high-dimensional data.
problem Lack of formalization and theoretical insights for learning discrete concepts from high-dimensional data.
method Formalizes concepts as latent causal variables in a hierarchical model, formulates conditions for concept identification.
result Conditions for identifying latent hierarchical models in unsupervised data, handling complex structures and high-dimensional data.
Paper recovers latent causal structure and linear transformation from indirect observations.
problem Recovering latent causal structure and linear transformation from indirect observations.
method Established sufficient conditions for DAG recovery, leveraged score function properties, and used soft/hard interventions.
result Perfect recovery of latent DAG structure and linear transformation up to scaling using soft interventions, hard interventions with additional hypothesis testing.
We consider the problem of learning causal models from observational data generated by linear non-Gaussian acyclic causal models with latent variables. Without considering the effect of latent variables, one usually infers wrong causal relationships among the observed variables. Under faithfulness assumption, we propos…
A central question of representation learning asks under which conditions it is possible to reconstruct the true latent variables of an arbitrarily complex generative process. Recent breakthrough work by Khemakhem et al. (2019) on nonlinear ICA has answered this question for a broad class of conditional generative proc…