Download or read book Causation Prediction and Search written by Peter Spirtes and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is intended for anyone, regardless of discipline, who is interested in the use of statistical methods to help obtain scientific explanations or to predict the outcomes of actions, experiments or policies. Much of G. Udny Yule's work illustrates a vision of statistics whose goal is to investigate when and how causal influences may be reliably inferred, and their comparative strengths estimated, from statistical samples. Yule's enterprise has been largely replaced by Ronald Fisher's conception, in which there is a fundamental cleavage between experimental and non experimental inquiry, and statistics is largely unable to aid in causal inference without randomized experimental trials. Every now and then members of the statistical community express misgivings about this turn of events, and, in our view, rightly so. Our work represents a return to something like Yule's conception of the enterprise of theoretical statistics and its potential practical benefits. If intellectual history in the 20th century had gone otherwise, there might have been a discipline to which our work belongs. As it happens, there is not. We develop material that belongs to statistics, to computer science, and to philosophy; the combination may not be entirely satisfactory for specialists in any of these subjects. We hope it is nonetheless satisfactory for its purpose.

Download or read book Elements of Causal Inference written by Jonas Peters and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-11-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise and self-contained introduction to causal inference, increasingly important in data science and machine learning. The mathematization of causality is a relatively recent development, and has become increasingly important in data science and machine learning. This book offers a self-contained and concise introduction to causal models and how to learn them from data. After explaining the need for causal models and discussing some of the principles underlying causal inference, the book teaches readers how to use causal models: how to compute intervention distributions, how to infer causal models from observational and interventional data, and how causal ideas could be exploited for classical machine learning problems. All of these topics are discussed first in terms of two variables and then in the more general multivariate case. The bivariate case turns out to be a particularly hard problem for causal learning because there are no conditional independences as used by classical methods for solving multivariate cases. The authors consider analyzing statistical asymmetries between cause and effect to be highly instructive, and they report on their decade of intensive research into this problem. The book is accessible to readers with a background in machine learning or statistics, and can be used in graduate courses or as a reference for researchers. The text includes code snippets that can be copied and pasted, exercises, and an appendix with a summary of the most important technical concepts.

Download or read book An Introduction to Causal Inference written by Judea Pearl and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper summarizes recent advances in causal inference and underscores the paradigmatic shifts that must be undertaken in moving from traditional statistical analysis to causal analysis of multivariate data. Special emphasis is placed on the assumptions that underly all causal inferences, the languages used in formulating those assumptions, the conditional nature of all causal and counterfactual claims, and the methods that have been developed for the assessment of such claims. These advances are illustrated using a general theory of causation based on the Structural Causal Model (SCM) described in Pearl (2000a), which subsumes and unifies other approaches to causation, and provides a coherent mathematical foundation for the analysis of causes and counterfactuals. In particular, the paper surveys the development of mathematical tools for inferring (from a combination of data and assumptions) answers to three types of causal queries: (1) queries about the effects of potential interventions, (also called "causal effects" or "policy evaluation") (2) queries about probabilities of counterfactuals, (including assessment of "regret," "attribution" or "causes of effects") and (3) queries about direct and indirect effects (also known as "mediation"). Finally, the paper defines the formal and conceptual relationships between the structural and potential-outcome frameworks and presents tools for a symbiotic analysis that uses the strong features of both. The tools are demonstrated in the analyses of mediation, causes of effects, and probabilities of causation. -- p. 1.

Download or read book Causal Inference in Statistics written by Judea Pearl and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-01-25 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CAUSAL INFERENCE IN STATISTICS A Primer Causality is central to the understanding and use of data. Without an understanding of cause–effect relationships, we cannot use data to answer questions as basic as "Does this treatment harm or help patients?" But though hundreds of introductory texts are available on statistical methods of data analysis, until now, no beginner-level book has been written about the exploding arsenal of methods that can tease causal information from data. Causal Inference in Statistics fills that gap. Using simple examples and plain language, the book lays out how to define causal parameters; the assumptions necessary to estimate causal parameters in a variety of situations; how to express those assumptions mathematically; whether those assumptions have testable implications; how to predict the effects of interventions; and how to reason counterfactually. These are the foundational tools that any student of statistics needs to acquire in order to use statistical methods to answer causal questions of interest. This book is accessible to anyone with an interest in interpreting data, from undergraduates, professors, researchers, or to the interested layperson. Examples are drawn from a wide variety of fields, including medicine, public policy, and law; a brief introduction to probability and statistics is provided for the uninitiated; and each chapter comes with study questions to reinforce the readers understanding.

Download or read book Causality written by Judea Pearl and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-14 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Causality offers the first comprehensive coverage of causal analysis in many sciences, including recent advances using graphical methods. Pearl presents a unified account of the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual and structural approaches to causation, and devises simple mathematical tools for analyzing the relationships between causal connections, statistical associations, actions and observations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curriculum of statistics, artificial intelligence ...

Download or read book Discovering Causal Structure written by Clark Glymour and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovering Causal Structure: Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Science, and Statistical Modeling provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of a computer program called TETRAD. This book discusses the version of the TETRAD program, which is designed to assist in the search for causal explanations of statistical data. or alternative models. This text then examines the notion of applying artificial intelligence methods to problems of statistical model specification. Other chapters consider how the TETRAD program can help to find god alternative models where they exist, and how it can help detect the existence of important neglected variables. This book discusses as well the procedures for specifying a model or models to account for non-experimental or quasi-experimental data. The final chapter presents a description of the format of input files and a description of each command. This book is a valuable resource for social scientists and researchers.

Download or read book Experimental and Quasi experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference written by William R. Shadish and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2002 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sections include: experiments and generalised causal inference; statistical conclusion validity and internal validity; construct validity and external validity; quasi-experimental designs that either lack a control group or lack pretest observations on the outcome; quasi-experimental designs that use both control groups and pretests; quasi-experiments: interrupted time-series designs; regresssion discontinuity designs; randomised experiments: rationale, designs, and conditions conducive to doing them; practical problems 1: ethics, participation recruitment and random assignment; practical problems 2: treatment implementation and attrition; generalised causal inference: a grounded theory; generalised causal inference: methods for single studies; generalised causal inference: methods for multiple studies; a critical assessment of our assumptions.

Download or read book Interpretable Machine Learning written by Christoph Molnar and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2020 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about making machine learning models and their decisions interpretable. After exploring the concepts of interpretability, you will learn about simple, interpretable models such as decision trees, decision rules and linear regression. Later chapters focus on general model-agnostic methods for interpreting black box models like feature importance and accumulated local effects and explaining individual predictions with Shapley values and LIME. All interpretation methods are explained in depth and discussed critically. How do they work under the hood? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How can their outputs be interpreted? This book will enable you to select and correctly apply the interpretation method that is most suitable for your machine learning project.

Download or read book Data Science for Economics and Finance written by Sergio Consoli and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book covers the use of data science, including advanced machine learning, big data analytics, Semantic Web technologies, natural language processing, social media analysis, time series analysis, among others, for applications in economics and finance. In addition, it shows some successful applications of advanced data science solutions used to extract new knowledge from data in order to improve economic forecasting models. The book starts with an introduction on the use of data science technologies in economics and finance and is followed by thirteen chapters showing success stories of the application of specific data science methodologies, touching on particular topics related to novel big data sources and technologies for economic analysis (e.g. social media and news); big data models leveraging on supervised/unsupervised (deep) machine learning; natural language processing to build economic and financial indicators; and forecasting and nowcasting of economic variables through time series analysis. This book is relevant to all stakeholders involved in digital and data-intensive research in economics and finance, helping them to understand the main opportunities and challenges, become familiar with the latest methodological findings, and learn how to use and evaluate the performances of novel tools and frameworks. It primarily targets data scientists and business analysts exploiting data science technologies, and it will also be a useful resource to research students in disciplines and courses related to these topics. Overall, readers will learn modern and effective data science solutions to create tangible innovations for economic and financial applications.

Download or read book All of Statistics written by Larry Wasserman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taken literally, the title "All of Statistics" is an exaggeration. But in spirit, the title is apt, as the book does cover a much broader range of topics than a typical introductory book on mathematical statistics. This book is for people who want to learn probability and statistics quickly. It is suitable for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in computer science, mathematics, statistics, and related disciplines. The book includes modern topics like non-parametric curve estimation, bootstrapping, and classification, topics that are usually relegated to follow-up courses. The reader is presumed to know calculus and a little linear algebra. No previous knowledge of probability and statistics is required. Statistics, data mining, and machine learning are all concerned with collecting and analysing data.

Download or read book Big Data Meets Survey Science written by Craig A. Hill and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a clear view of the utility and place for survey data within the broader Big Data ecosystem This book presents a collection of snapshots from two sides of the Big Data perspective. It assembles an array of tangible tools, methods, and approaches that illustrate how Big Data sources and methods are being used in the survey and social sciences to improve official statistics and estimates for human populations. It also provides examples of how survey data are being used to evaluate and improve the quality of insights derived from Big Data. Big Data Meets Survey Science: A Collection of Innovative Methods shows how survey data and Big Data are used together for the benefit of one or more sources of data, with numerous chapters providing consistent illustrations and examples of survey data enriching the evaluation of Big Data sources. Examples of how machine learning, data mining, and other data science techniques are inserted into virtually every stage of the survey lifecycle are presented. Topics covered include: Total Error Frameworks for Found Data; Performance and Sensitivities of Home Detection on Mobile Phone Data; Assessing Community Wellbeing Using Google Street View and Satellite Imagery; Using Surveys to Build and Assess RBS Religious Flag; and more. Presents groundbreaking survey methods being utilized today in the field of Big Data Explores how machine learning methods can be applied to the design, collection, and analysis of social science data Filled with examples and illustrations that show how survey data benefits Big Data evaluation Covers methods and applications used in combining Big Data with survey statistics Examines regulations as well as ethical and privacy issues Big Data Meets Survey Science: A Collection of Innovative Methods is an excellent book for both the survey and social science communities as they learn to capitalize on this new revolution. It will also appeal to the broader data and computer science communities looking for new areas of application for emerging methods and data sources.

Download or read book Understanding Machine Learning written by Shai Shalev-Shwartz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces machine learning and its algorithmic paradigms, explaining the principles behind automated learning approaches and the considerations underlying their usage.

Download or read book Essentials of Lawyering Skills in Africa written by Festus Emiri and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In twenty-two chapters, divided into six parts for convenience, the authors not only lay bare the art of lawyering but also provide invaluable nuggets of perfecting and excelling as a solicitor and advocate. There is little doubt that the contents of this book dramatically make a lawyer, especially the lawyer in Africa, to be more effective, more skilful and a proper lawyer useful to the client and society.

Download or read book Evaluation Roots written by Marvin C. Alkin and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2004-02-19 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initially, evaluation was derived from social science research methodology and accountability concerns. This book examines evaluation theories and traces their evolution with the point of view that theories build upon theories and, therefore, evaluation theories are related to each other.

Download or read book Causal Inference in Econometrics written by Van-Nam Huynh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-28 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is devoted to the analysis of causal inference which is one of the most difficult tasks in data analysis: when two phenomena are observed to be related, it is often difficult to decide whether one of them causally influences the other one, or whether these two phenomena have a common cause. This analysis is the main focus of this volume. To get a good understanding of the causal inference, it is important to have models of economic phenomena which are as accurate as possible. Because of this need, this volume also contains papers that use non-traditional economic models, such as fuzzy models and models obtained by using neural networks and data mining techniques. It also contains papers that apply different econometric models to analyze real-life economic dependencies.

Download or read book Bayesian Data Analysis Third Edition written by Andrew Gelman and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 677 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its third edition, this classic book is widely considered the leading text on Bayesian methods, lauded for its accessible, practical approach to analyzing data and solving research problems. Bayesian Data Analysis, Third Edition continues to take an applied approach to analysis using up-to-date Bayesian methods. The authors—all leaders in the statistics community—introduce basic concepts from a data-analytic perspective before presenting advanced methods. Throughout the text, numerous worked examples drawn from real applications and research emphasize the use of Bayesian inference in practice. New to the Third Edition Four new chapters on nonparametric modeling Coverage of weakly informative priors and boundary-avoiding priors Updated discussion of cross-validation and predictive information criteria Improved convergence monitoring and effective sample size calculations for iterative simulation Presentations of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, variational Bayes, and expectation propagation New and revised software code The book can be used in three different ways. For undergraduate students, it introduces Bayesian inference starting from first principles. For graduate students, the text presents effective current approaches to Bayesian modeling and computation in statistics and related fields. For researchers, it provides an assortment of Bayesian methods in applied statistics. Additional materials, including data sets used in the examples, solutions to selected exercises, and software instructions, are available on the book’s web page.

Download or read book Information Theory Inference and Learning Algorithms written by David J. C. MacKay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-25 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information theory and inference, taught together in this exciting textbook, lie at the heart of many important areas of modern technology - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics and cryptography. The book introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. Inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks. Uniquely, the book covers state-of-the-art error-correcting codes, including low-density-parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes - the twenty-first-century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast. Richly illustrated, filled with worked examples and over 400 exercises, some with detailed solutions, the book is ideal for self-learning, and for undergraduate or graduate courses. It also provides an unparalleled entry point for professionals in areas as diverse as computational biology, financial engineering and machine learning.