While deep representation learning has become increasingly capable of separating task-relevant representations from other confounding factors in the data, two significant challenges remain. First, there is often an unknown and potentially infinite number of confounding factors coinciding in the data. Second, not all of…
Method estimates treatment effects in dyadic data with unknown confounders.
problem Estimating treatment effects in dyadic data with unobserved confounders.
method Neighborhood kernel smoothing method for graphon estimation.
result Derives rate of convergence for estimator and demonstrates test size control.
New bounds assess policy evaluation under unobserved confounders, showing model-based methods are more effective.
problem Policy evaluation under unobserved confounders in uncertain causal environments.
method Developed worst-case bounds for sensitivity to unobserved confounders, demonstrating model-based methods are more effective.
result Model-based approaches with robust MDPs provide sharper lower bounds for policy evaluation.
Learning individual-level causal effects from observational data, such as inferring the most effective medication for a specific patient, is a problem of growing importance for policy makers. The most important aspect of inferring causal effects from observational data is the handling of confounders, factors that affec…
The paper uses neural networks to estimate treatment effects even with many confounders.
problem Estimating treatment effects with a growing number of confounders.
method General optimization framework using neural networks to approximate nuisance functions.
result Neural networks can handle a diverging number of confounders and alleviate the curse of dimensionality.
Caus-Modens uses deep ensembles to better predict causal outcomes in hidden confounding scenarios.
problem Predicting causal outcomes in the presence of hidden confounders.
method Caus-Modens employs a modulated ensemble approach to improve prediction intervals for causal outcomes using sensitivity models.
result Caus-Modens provides tighter prediction intervals for causal outcomes compared to existing methods.
Paper proposes mechanism learning to reverse causal inference in ML.
problem Machine learning models learn associational, not causal, relationships.
method Causally weighted Gaussian mixture models (CW-GMMs).
result CW-GMMs can deconfound observational data for reverse causal inference.
Method improves treatment effect prediction robust to unknown covariate shifts.
problem Estimating heterogeneous treatment effects for different populations.
method Post-processing CATE T-learners with multi-accurate predictors to handle unknown covariate shifts.
result Improves bias and mean squared error in simulations with covariate shifts.
Paper tackles confounded ANMs, estimating ACEs with minimal interventions.
problem Estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounders.
method Interventional distributions and randomized algorithm to reduce the number of required interventions.
result Poly-logarithmic number of interventions sufficient to infer causal effects in confounded ANMs.
New method removes hidden confounders for unbiased treatment effect estimation.
problem Bias in treatment effect estimation due to unobserved confounders.
method Proposes a new debiased estimation approach via SVD to handle heterogeneous confounding.
result Established rate of convergence for the estimator under different noise conditions.
Develops a method for causal inference with noisy confounders.
problem Noisy measurements of confounders in treatment effects models.
method Local principal subspace approximation combining K-nearest neighbors matching and PCA.
result Estimators of treatment effects and counterfactual distributions are constructed.
One of the most fundamental problems in causal inference is the estimation of a causal effect when variables are confounded. This is difficult in an observational study, because one has no direct evidence that all confounders have been adjusted for. We introduce a novel approach for estimating causal effects that explo…
New method infers causal effects without knowing control variables.
problem Inference errors when control variables are unknown.
method Proposes a method for inferring causal effects when control variables are unknown.
result Proves method yields asymptotically valid confidence intervals for average causal effects.
Proposes BSSP to stabilize predictions in biased data.
problem Distribution shift between training and test data causes prediction instability.
method Balance-subsampled stable prediction (BSSP) algorithm based on fractional factorial design.
result Significantly improves prediction stability across unknown test data.
Extracts invariant features to predict Y without confounding by Z, using conditional independence and optimal transport.
problem Extracting invariant features to predict Y without confounding by Z, a response variable influenced by unknown confounders Z.
method Develops a methodology penalizing statistical dependence between feature and confounders conditioned on Y, using the Optimal Transport Barycenter Problem.
result The method extracts invariant features in the Gaussian case, equivalent to penalizing dependence between feature and conditional random variable Z_Y.
New method estimates latent gene expression factors without overlap with known confounders.
problem Estimating latent variance components in gene expression data with known confounders.
method Restricted maximum-likelihood method maximizing likelihood on orthogonal subspace.
result Method reduces runtime and attains greater likelihood values than gradient-based optimizers.
NICE learns a representation to avoid bad controls in causal inference.
problem Avoiding bad controls in causal inference from observational data.
method Uses invariant risk minimization (IRM) to learn a representation of covariates that avoids bad controls.
result NICE outperforms adjusting for all covariates in cases with unknown collider variables and bad controls.
New method for robust policy evaluation in offline reinforcement learning with sequentially exogenous unobserved confounders.
problem Offline reinforcement learning in domains with unobserved confounders.
method Orthogonalized robust fitted-Q-iteration with closed-form solutions and bias-correction.
result Effective in simulations and real-world data, improving robustness and computational ease.
Identifies causal effects in LiNGAM models with latent variables.
problem Identifying causal effects in LiNGAM models with latent confounders.
method Complete graphical characterization and efficient algorithms for certification. RICA adaptation for estimation.
result Efficient algorithms and RICA adaptation for estimating causal effects.
Casper uses causal graph neural networks to improve spatiotemporal time series imputation.
problem Imputing missing values in spatiotemporal time series with confounders and non-causal correlations.
method Casper introduces a novel Prompt Based Decoder (PBD) and Spatiotemporal Causal Attention (SCA) to block confounders and discover causal relationships.
result Casper outperforms baselines and effectively discovers causal relationships in spatiotemporal time series imputation.
Method estimates treatment effects with continuous values, correcting for confounding.
problem Estimating treatment effects with continuous values, dealing with confounding.
method Two-stage kernel ridge regression: first stage learns response, second stage corrects for distribution shift.
result Optimal learning bounds achieved without estimating treatment density, adapts to unknown overlap and kernel spectral decay.
Latent variable models are used to estimate variables of interest quantities which are observable only up to some measurement error. In many studies, such variables are known but not precisely quantifiable (such as "job satisfaction" in social sciences and marketing, "analytical ability" in educational testing, or "inf…
The paper addresses causal estimation for text data with apparent overlap violations.
problem Estimating causal effects from text data with unknown confounders and apparent overlap.
method Uses supervised representation learning to create a representation that preserves confounding information while eliminating predictive information, satisfying overlap assumptions.
result Shows how to obtain robust causal estimation in the presence of apparent overlap violations.
The paper proposes a method to precisely decompose confounders and estimate treatment effects.
problem Estimating treatment effects from observational data with confounder identification and balancing.
method Learning decomposed representations to identify and balance confounders and non-confounders.
result The method achieves more precise treatment effect estimation than existing methods.
New algorithm learns causal graph to minimize regret in bandits without full structure.
problem Learning optimal decisions in bandits with unknown causal graph and latent confounders.
method Two-stage approach: first learns ancestors and necessary confounders, second applies standard bandit algorithm.
result No full causal structure needed for optimal decisions; only necessary confounders are crucial.
Research shows continual learning challenges in confounded datasets.
problem Challenges in mitigating confounders in continual learning settings.
method Formal description of continual confounders, construction of ConCon dataset.
result Standard continual learning methods fail to ignore confounders.
Statistical learning on biological data can be challenging due to confounding variables in sample collection and processing. Confounders can cause models to generalize poorly and result in inaccurate prediction performance metrics if models are not validated thoroughly. In this paper, we propose methods to control for …
Causal inference from observational data requires assumptions. These assumptions range from measuring confounders to identifying instruments. Traditionally, causal inference assumptions have focused on estimation of effects for a single treatment. In this work, we construct techniques for estimation with multiple treat…
Detect hidden confounding in observational data using multiple environments.
problem Detect hidden confounding in observational data.
method Theoretical framework and simulation studies to test for hidden confounding.
result The proposed procedure correctly predicts hidden confounding, especially when bias is large.
Machine learning confound removal biases results, leading to misleading predictions.
problem Common confound removal methods in machine learning lead to misleading predictions.
method Featurewise removal of confound variance by linear regression before applying ML.
result This common deconfounding approach can leak information, amplifying null or moderate effects.
KRCD detects unobserved confounders in nonlinear observational data.
problem Detecting unobserved confounders in nonlinear observational studies.
method Kernel Regression Confounder Detection (KRCD) using reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.
result KRCD outperforms existing methods and achieves superior computational efficiency.
Study identifies conditions for proxy adjustment in confounded binary treatment outcomes.
problem Average causal effect estimation with a non-differentially mismeasured binary confounder.
method Identifies conditions for proxy adjustment in the presence of a non-differentially mismeasured binary confounder.
result Adjusting for a non-differentially mismeasured binary proxy can improve estimation of the average causal effect.
New method estimates policy performance under unobserved confounding.
problem Estimating policy performance when decisions depend on unobserved variables.
method Developed worst-case bounds for robust OPE under unobserved confounding.
result Efficient procedure for computing worst-case bounds, proving statistical consistency.
We consider testing and learning problems on causal Bayesian networks as defined by Pearl (Pearl, 2009). Given a causal Bayesian network M on a graph with n discrete variables and bounded in-degree and bounded `confounded components', we show that O(logn) interventions on an unknown causal Bayesian ne…
Consistent estimator derived for confounding strength in observational data.
problem Estimating confounding strength in observational data is challenging due to unobserved confounders.
method Derived and adapted a consistent estimator using tools from random matrix theory.
result The original estimator is not consistent, but an adapted one is.
A new method uses randomized trials to estimate the strength of unobserved confounding.
problem Unobserved confounding compromises causal conclusions from non-randomized studies.
method Designs a statistical test to detect unobserved confounding strength and estimates a lower bound.
result Estimates an asymptotically valid lower bound on unobserved confounding strength.
Study tackles causal effects of close contact on MRSA infections from entangled treatment data.
problem Estimating causal effects of close contact on MRSA infections from observational data with entangled treatments.
method NEAT method that models treatment assignment mechanism and mitigates confounding biases.
result NEAT method effectively estimates causal effects from entangled treatment data.
This paper tackles confounding biases in data augmentation.
problem Mitigating spurious correlations and confounding variables in training data.
method Formal analysis and counterfactual data augmentation.
result Removing confounding biases leads to invariant features and better generalization.
New method recovers latent confounders from high-dimensional proxy variables.
problem Detecting latent confounders from high-dimensional proxy variables.
method Proxy Confounder Factorization (PCF) framework using ICA-PCF and GD-PCF.
result ICA-PCF recovers confounders with high correlation and low error in synthetic and real-world data.
Stable health predictions need deconfounding test set features.
problem Stability of predictions in health machine learning is compromised by selection biases.
method Deconfounding the test set features improves prediction stability across different environments.
result Improved stability achieved by deconfounding test set features.
Proposes tests to control confounding bias in predictive models.
problem Lack of non-parametric tests for confounding bias in predictive modeling.
method Partial and full confounder tests for probing null hypotheses of unconfounded and fully confounded models.
result Reveals previously unreported or hard-to-correct confounders in machine learning models.
New method tackles confounded bandit problems with dual instrumental variables.
problem Confounded contextual bandit problems where noise affects both contexts and rewards.
method Dual instrumental variable regression applied to reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.
result Near-optimal convergence rate and computationally efficient algorithms proved.
New approach for causal inference with interdependent, time-varying latent confounders.
problem Estimating causal effects with interdependent, time-varying latent confounders.
method Variational estimation with a representer theorem and random input space.
result Demonstrates effectiveness on various temporal datasets.
Causal discovery from data affected by latent confounders is an important and difficult challenge. Causal functional model-based approaches have not been used to present variables whose relationships are affected by latent confounders, while some constraint-based methods can present them. This paper proposes a causal f…
Estimating the individual treatment effect (ITE) from observational data is essential in medicine. A central challenge in estimating the ITE is handling confounders, which are factors that affect both an intervention and its outcome. Most previous work relies on the unconfoundedness assumption, which posits that all th…
CARE improves LLM aggregation by accounting for shared confounders.
problem LLM judges' correlated errors due to shared latent confounders.
method CARE explicitly models judges' scores as true quality and confounders.
result CARE reduces aggregation error by up to 26.8% across various benchmarks.
Proposes BDCM to handle unmeasured confounders in causal inference.
problem Handling unmeasured confounders in causal inference.
method Backdoor criterion to find variables for diffusion model.
result Captures counterfactual distribution more precisely.
New methods prioritize acquiring confounding features for efficient treatment effect estimation.
problem Efficient treatment effect estimation from observational data with missing confounding information.
method Proposes two acquisition strategies: covariate balancing and reducing factual outcome error.
result Our proposed methods, especially reducing factual outcome error, improve sample efficiency for treatment effect estimation.