Causal structure discovery from incomplete data

Causal structure learning is a fundamental tool for building a scientific understanding of the way a system works. However, in many application areas, such as genomics, the information necessary for current causal structure learning algorithms does not match the information that researchers can actually access, for example when the algorithm requires knowledge of intervention targets but the interventions have off-target effects. In this thesis, we developed, implemented, and tested a novel algorithm for discovering a causal DAG from observational and interventional data, when the intervention targets are either partially or completely unknown. We relate the algorithm to the recently introduced Joint Causal Inference framework. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the algorithm on synthetic datasets and demonstrated its ability to outperform current state-of-the-art causal structure learning algorithms which assume known intervention targets.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Squires, Chandler(Chandler B.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Caroline Uhler.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/124263

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/124263