Integrating causal machine learning with inherently interpretable models for decision support.
problem Providing causal insights and decision support through machine learning models.
method Proposing an approach that integrates causal machine learning with inherently interpretable models.
result The proposed approach achieves competitive performance in prediction and what-if analysis while offering transparency on the system structure, causal relationships among variables, and functional forms connecting them.
A key challenge in developing and deploying Machine Learning (ML) systems is understanding their performance across a wide range of inputs. To address this challenge, we created the What-If Tool, an open-source application that allows practitioners to probe, visualize, and analyze ML systems, with minimal coding. The W…
The paper proposes a method to explain expert decisions by modeling preferences with 'what if' outcomes.
problem Interpreting and auditing decision-making policies in institutions.
method Integrating counterfactual reasoning into batch inverse reinforcement learning.
result The method effectively recovers accurate and interpretable descriptions of expert behavior.
Model analyzes mortgage relief during financial hardship.
problem Understanding and optimizing mortgage relief during financial distress.
method Agent-based model of households and servicers.
result Model replicates real-world mortgage studies and provides fine-grained insights.
Method explains anomaly detection by generating normal modifications.
problem Complexity of deep learning methods in anomaly detection.
method Generates multiple alternative modifications for anomalies.
result High-quality semantic explanations provided for anomaly detection.
DeepPPMNet forecasts EMS demand and performs causal analyses for policy-making.
problem Accurate prediction and causal analysis of EMS demand for effective policy-making.
method DeepPPMNet, a LSTM-based framework, globally forecasts and analyzes causal relationships using Granger causality.
result DeepPPMNet outperforms traditional methods in forecasting EMS demand and policy-making.
Cost-benefit analysis often assumes accurate estimates, but this study finds significant inaccuracies.
problem Inaccurate cost and benefit estimates in public investments.
method Largest dataset of public investments, statistical analysis of cost overruns and benefit shortfalls.
result Significant inaccuracies in cost and benefit estimates of public investments.
Proposes a new model for predicting future motion of road actors in autonomous vehicles.
problem Forecasting the long-term future motion of road actors for safe autonomous driving.
method Recurrent graph-based attentional approach with interpretable geometric and social relationships.
result Can produce diverse predictions conditioned on hypothetical or 'what-if' scenarios.
The increasing adoption of machine learning tools has led to calls for accountability via model interpretability. But what does it mean for a machine learning model to be interpretable by humans, and how can this be assessed? We focus on two definitions of interpretability that have been introduced in the machine learn…
We propose a reinforcement learning framework for discrete environments in which an agent makes both strategic and tactical decisions. The former manifests itself through the use of value function, while the latter is powered by a tree search planner. These tools complement each other. The planning module performs a lo…
Survey of counterfactual explanations for time series classification.
problem Generating plausible and actionable counterfactuals for time series data.
method Review of various counterfactual generation methods for time series classification.
result Highlight unique challenges and strengths of existing methods.
Paper proposes a new approach to GDPR compliance using data protection analytics.
problem Lack of research on data protection risk management and difficulty in GDPR compliance.
method Quantitative approach to data protection risk-based compliance.
result Improves data protection impact assessments by integrating analytics and expert opinions.
CRL approach improves understanding of heterogeneous treatment effects in complex diseases.
problem Estimating heterogeneous treatment effects in complex diseases.
method Causal rule learning (CRL) workflow consisting of rule discovery, selection, and analysis.
result CRL outperforms other methods in providing interpretable estimates of HTE.
Estimation of individual treatment effect in observational data is complicated due to the challenges of confounding and selection bias. A useful inferential framework to address this is the counterfactual (potential outcomes) model which takes the hypothetical stance of asking what if an individual had received both tr…
Proposes MOC method for better counterfactual explanations in ML models.
problem Difficulties in balancing multiple objectives for counterfactual explanations.
method Translates counterfactual search into a multi-objective optimization problem.
result Returns diverse counterfactuals with different trade-offs and maintains feature diversity.
Estimates treatment effects in rare extreme events using EVT.
problem Estimating treatment effects in rare, impactful events like extreme climate events.
method Introduces a novel framework using EVT and multivariate regular variation for consistent treatment effect estimation.
result Developed a consistent estimator for extreme treatment effects with rigorous non-asymptotic analysis.
Investor optimizes investment timing with future knowledge, overcoming transaction costs.
problem Optimal investment timing with future peeking, constrained by transaction costs.
method Solves control problem with infinite-dimensional memory using Gaussian Volterra integral equations.
result Explicit solution to optimal investment problem in Bachelier setting.
This paper discusses the financial risks faced by the UK Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and what, if anything, it can do about them. It draws lessons from the regulatory regimes under which other financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, operate and asks why pension funds are treated differently. It…
This paper tackles sequential distribution shifts in representation learning.
problem Learning meaningful representations in a sequence of distribution shifts.
method Nonlinear Independent Component Analysis (ICA) framework for continual causal representation learning.
result The method achieves performance comparable to joint training on multiple offline distributions and shows no benefit from the incoming new distribution on all latent variables.
Study uses data to analyze COPD patients' impact on hospital systems.
problem Understanding and quantifying resource requirements for COPD patients.
method Combines segmentation, queuing theory, and data recovery techniques.
result Finding useful operational results from incomplete administrative data.
A new algorithm speeds up matrix operations in Neural Networks.
problem Time-consuming matrix operations in Neural Networks.
method An algorithm that increases the degree of parallelism of matrix multiplication.
result The algorithm speeds up several matrix operations in Neural Networks.
Was it fair that Harry was hired but not Barry? Was it fair that Pam was fired instead of Sam? How can one ensure fairness when an intelligent algorithm takes these decisions instead of a human? How can one ensure that the decisions were taken based on merit and not on protected attributes like race or sex? These are t…
Counterfactuals help compare different scenarios in CI and XAI.
problem Comparing how counterfactuals are used in causal inference and explainable AI.
method Formal definition and comparison of counterfactuals in CI and XAI.
result Identified opportunities for cross-fertilization between CI and XAI.
Cycloids, hipocycloids and epicycloids have an often forgotten common property: they are homothetic to their evolutes. But what if use convex symmetric polygons as unit balls, can we define evolutes and cycloids which are genuinely discrete? Indeed, we can! We define discrete cycloids as eigenvectors of a discrete doub…
An agent explores indefinitely in an environment with unlimited rewards.
problem Balancing exploration and exploitation in environments with unlimited rewards.
method Simple example of an environment with unbounded rewards and optimal agent behavior.
result An optimal agent always explores to maximize rewards, regardless of accumulated knowledge.
New model recognizes emotions with missing modalities, improving accuracy.
problem Handling missing modalities in emotion recognition.
method Transformer-based architecture with cross-attention and self-attention mechanisms.
result Improvement of 37% in predicting arousal values and 30% in valence values compared to baseline.
When can one 3-manifold be transformed to another by a finite sequence of Dehn surgeries which are restricted to preserve the first homology of the manifolds ? What is the resulting equivalence relation on 3-manifolds ? What if the surgery circle is further restricted to lie more deeply in the lower central series of t…
Text classification on drug SMILES strings yields competitive drug type classification results.
problem Classifying drug types using conventional text classification methods.
method Treated drug SMILES as sentences and applied basic NLP methods for classification.
result Competitive drug type classification results achieved.
Framework for transitioning financial models from risk-neutral to real-world measure.
problem Transitioning financial models from risk-neutral to real-world measure to better reflect market dynamics and investor preferences.
method Leveraging probability theory, specifically Girsanov's theorem, to incorporate real-world dynamics into financial models.
result Validation of the robustness and practical relevance of the methodology through case studies involving financial forecasts and stress tests.
A variance swap is a derivative with a path-dependent payoff which allows investors to take positions on the future variability of an asset. In the idealised setting of a continuously monitored variance swap written on an asset with continuous paths it is well known that the variance swap payoff can be replicated exact…
Paper presents a Rashomon Quartet to show different model explanations.
problem Models with similar performance can explain data differently.
method Synthetic dataset with four equally effective models.
result Models with similar performance can explain data differently.
TOO optimizes stochastic epidemiological models by finding both parameter settings and random seeds.
problem Calibrating stochastic epidemiological models to match empirical observations.
method Gaussian process surrogates and Thompson sampling for optimization.
result Produces actual trajectories consistent with ground truth.
Proposes Causal-Batle for estimating treatment effects in small high-dimensional datasets.
problem Estimating treatment effects with small high-dimensional datasets.
method Adopts transfer learning techniques for causal inference.
result Improves treatment effect estimates in small high-dimensional datasets.
Study finds a method to discover causal relationships that are invariant to marginal distributions.
problem Current causal discovery methods are sensitive to marginal distributions, leading to unreliable results.
method Proposes a non-parametric estimator that marginalizes the marginals to find intrinsic causal relationships.
result The proposed method yields causal estimators competitive with current methodologies and emphasizes uncertainty.
Although deep reinforcement learning agents have produced impressive results in many domains, their decision making is difficult to explain to humans. To address this problem, past work has mainly focused on explaining why an action was chosen in a given state. A different type of explanation that is useful is a counte…
Who {\em values} life annuities more? Is it the healthy retiree who expects to live long and might become a centenarian, or is the unhealthy retiree with a short life expectancy more likely to appreciate the pooling of longevity risk? What if the unhealthy retiree is pooled with someone who is much healthier and thus f…
Learning representations for counterfactual inference from observational data is of high practical relevance for many domains, such as healthcare, public policy and economics. Counterfactual inference enables one to answer "What if...?" questions, such as "What would be the outcome if we gave this patient treatment $t_…
Generates realistic time-series data from causal models.
problem Simulate realistic time-series data from causal models.
method Adversarial Causal Tuning (ACT) methodology.
result ACT selects optimal causal models and quantifies goodness-of-fit.
Decision-makers are faced with the challenge of estimating what is likely to happen when they take an action. For instance, if I choose not to treat this patient, are they likely to die? Practitioners commonly use supervised learning algorithms to fit predictive models that help decision-makers reason about likely futu…
Deep learning predicts crop yield integrating genotype and weather data.
problem Improving crop yield prediction for diverse climates.
method Long Short Term Memory - Recurrent Neural Network model with temporal attention mechanism.
result Deep learning models outperform traditional methods for yield prediction.
Develops a method to optimize tax codes with practical constraints.
problem Translating optimal taxation theory into practical tax codes.
method Constrained optimization framework for piecewise linear tax functions.
result Generates reforms that meet theoretical and practical constraints.
Bayesian model uses mobile data to assess business resilience after hurricanes.
problem Evaluating economic impact of extreme shocks on businesses.
method Bayesian structural time series model with mobile phone data.
result Estimates business resilience after hurricanes, revealing key characteristics.
Estimating the joint probability mass function (PMF) of a set of random variables lies at the heart of statistical learning and signal processing. Without structural assumptions, such as modeling the variables as a Markov chain, tree, or other graphical model, joint PMF estimation is often considered mission impossible…
Analogy-making is a key method for computer algorithms to generate both natural and creative music pieces. In general, an analogy is made by partially transferring the music abstractions, i.e., high-level representations and their relationships, from one piece to another; however, this procedure requires disentangling …
Develops methods for making deep learning models more interpretable by answering counterfactual questions.
problem Lack of interpretability in deep learning models, especially in high-stakes applications.
method Introduces causal interpretability, a framework for building models that are causally interpretable by design.
result Identifies a fundamental tradeoff between causal interpretability and predictive accuracy.
Develops methods to create consistent surrogate models for agent-based simulators.
problem High computational costs and misjudgment of interventions in agent-based models.
method Causal abstractions to learn interventionally consistent surrogate models.
result Surrogates trained for interventional consistency closely mimic the agent-based model's behavior under interventions.
PolicySynth improves synthetic data alignment with real data for better campaign decisions.
problem Synthetic data used in decision support systems often leads to incorrect decisions.
method PolicySynth framework that conditions synthetic data on churn scorer to align with real data decisions.
result PolicySynth achieves high strategy simulation fidelity (0.923-0.960) on churn and acquisition datasets.
Variable importance is central to scientific studies, including the social sciences and causal inference, healthcare, and other domains. However, current notions of variable importance are often tied to a specific predictive model. This is problematic: what if there were multiple well-performing predictive models, and …