A Core-Guided Approach to Learning Optimal Causal Graphs

A Core-Guided Approach to Learning Optimal Causal Graphs

Antti Hyttinen, Paul Saikko, Matti Järvisalo

Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Main track. Pages 645-651. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2017/90

Discovery of causal relations is an important part of data analysis. Recent exact Boolean optimization approaches enable tackling very general search spaces of causal graphs with feedback cycles and latent confounders, simultaneously obtaining high accuracy by optimally combining conflicting independence information in sample data. We propose several domain-specific techniques and integrate them into a core-guided maximum satisfiability solver, thereby speeding up current state of the art in exact search for causal graphs with cycles and latent confounders on simulated and real-world data.
Keywords:
Constraints and Satisfiability: MaxSAT, MinSAT
Knowledge Representation, Reasoning, and Logic: Action, Change and Causality
Machine Learning: Learning Graphical Models
Constraints and Satisfiability: Constraint Optimisation