鉴于探索性数据分析的日益普及（EDA），了解EDA获得的知识的基本原因至关重要，但仍未进行研究。这项研究首次促进了对数据分析的透明且可解释的观点，称为可解释的数据分析（XDA）。 XDA提供了有关因果和非因果语义的定性和定量解释的数据分析。这样，XDA将显着提高人类对数据分析结果的理解和信心，从而促进现实世界中准确的数据解释和决策。为此，我们提出Xinsight，这是XDA的一般框架。 Xinsight是一种旨在提取因果图，将因果原语转化为XDA语义的三模块，端到端管道，并量化每个解释对数据事实的定量贡献。 Xinsight使用一组设计概念和优化来解决与将因果集成到XDA中相关的固有困难。关于合成和现实世界数据集以及人类评估的实验证明了Xinsight的高度有希望的能力。

考虑基于AI和ML的决策对这些新兴技术的安全和可接受的使用的决策的社会和道德后果至关重要。公平，特别是保证ML决定不会导致对个人或少数群体的歧视。使用因果关系，可以更好地实现和衡量可靠的公平/歧视，从而更好地实现了敏感属性（例如性别，种族，宗教等）之间的因果关系，仅仅是仅仅是关联，例如性别，种族，宗教等（例如，雇用工作，贷款授予等） ）。然而，对因果关系解决公平性的最大障碍是因果模型的不可用（通常表示为因果图）。文献中现有的因果关系方法并不能解决此问题，并假设可获得因果模型。在本文中，我们没有做出这样的假设，并且我们回顾了从可观察数据中发现因果关系的主要算法。这项研究的重点是因果发现及其对公平性的影响。特别是，我们展示了不同的因果发现方法如何导致不同的因果模型，最重要的是，即使因果模型之间的轻微差异如何对公平/歧视结论产生重大影响。通过使用合成和标准公平基准数据集的经验分析来巩固这些结果。这项研究的主要目标是强调因果关系使用因果关系适当解决公平性的因果发现步骤的重要性。

因果关系是理解世界的科学努力的基本组成部分。不幸的是，在心理学和社会科学中，因果关系仍然是禁忌。由于越来越多的建议采用因果方法进行研究的重要性，我们重新制定了心理学研究方法的典型方法，以使不可避免的因果理论与其余的研究渠道协调。我们提出了一个新的过程，该过程始于从因果发现和机器学习的融合中纳入技术的发展，验证和透明的理论形式规范。然后，我们提出将完全指定的理论模型的复杂性降低到与给定目标假设相关的基本子模型中的方法。从这里，我们确定利息量是否可以从数据中估算出来，如果是的，则建议使用半参数机器学习方法来估计因果关系。总体目标是介绍新的研究管道，该管道可以（a）促进与测试因果理论的愿望兼容的科学询问（b）鼓励我们的理论透明代表作为明确的数学对象，（c）将我们的统计模型绑定到我们的统计模型中该理论的特定属性，因此减少了理论到模型间隙通常引起的规范不足问题，以及（d）产生因果关系和可重复性的结果和估计。通过具有现实世界数据的教学示例来证明该过程，我们以摘要和讨论来结论。

数据科学任务可以被视为了解数据的感觉或测试关于它的假设。从数据推断的结论可以极大地指导我们做出信息做出决定。大数据使我们能够与机器学习结合执行无数的预测任务，例如鉴定患有某种疾病的高风险患者并采取可预防措施。然而，医疗保健从业者不仅仅是仅仅预测的内容 - 它们也对输入特征和临床结果之间的原因关系感兴趣。了解这些关系将有助于医生治疗患者并有效降低风险。通常通过随机对照试验鉴定因果关系。当科学家和研究人员转向观察研究并试图吸引推论时，这种试验通常是不可行的。然而，观察性研究也可能受到选择和/或混淆偏差的影响，这可能导致错误的因果结论。在本章中，我们将尝试突出传统机器学习和统计方法中可能出现的一些缺点，以分析观察数据，特别是在医疗保健数据分析域中。我们将讨论因果化推理和方法，以发现医疗领域的观测研究原因。此外，我们将展示因果推断在解决某些普通机器学习问题等中的应用，例如缺少数据和模型可运输性。最后，我们将讨论将加强学习与因果关系相结合的可能性，作为反击偏见的一种方式。

最近的一些作品关于机器学习与因果关系之间的联系。在一个反向思考过程中，从因果模型中的心理模型的基础开始，我们加强了这些初始作品，结果表明XAI实质上要求机器学习学习与手头任务一致的因果关系。通过认识到人类的心理模型（HMM）如何自然地由Pearlian结构性因果模型（SCM）表示，我们通过构建线性SCM的示例度量空间来做出两个关键观察：首先，“真实”数据的概念 - 在SCM下是合理的，其次是，人类衍生的SCM的聚集可能指向“真实” SCM。在这些见解的含义中，我们以第三种观察结果认为，从HMM中得出的解释必须暗示在SCM框架中的解释性。在此直觉之后，我们使用这些首先建立的第一原则提出了原始推导，以揭示与给定SCM一致的人类可读解释方案，证明命名结构性因果解释（SCI）是合理的。进一步，我们从理论和经验上分析了这些SCI及其数学特性。我们证明，任何现有的图形诱导方法（GIM）实际上在科幻义中都是可以解释的。我们的第一个实验（E1）评估了这种基于GIM的SCI的质量。在（E2）中，我们观察到了我们对基于SCI学习的样本效率提高的猜想的证据。对于（e3），我们进行了一项研究（n = 22），并观察基于人类的SCI比GIM的SCI优势，从而证实了我们的初始假设。

基于AI和机器学习的决策系统已在各种现实世界中都使用，包括医疗保健，执法，教育和金融。不再是牵强的，即设想一个未来，自治系统将推动整个业务决策，并且更广泛地支持大规模决策基础设施以解决社会最具挑战性的问题。当人类做出决定时，不公平和歧视的问题普遍存在，并且当使用几乎没有透明度，问责制和公平性的机器做出决定时（或可能会放大）。在本文中，我们介绍了\ textit {Causal公平分析}的框架，目的是填补此差距，即理解，建模，并可能解决决策设置中的公平性问题。我们方法的主要见解是将观察到数据中存在的差异的量化与基本且通常是未观察到的因果机制收集的因果机制的收集，这些机制首先会产生差异，挑战我们称之为因果公平的基本问题分析（FPCFA）。为了解决FPCFA，我们研究了分解差异和公平性的经验度量的问题，将这种变化归因于结构机制和人群的不同单位。我们的努力最终达到了公平地图，这是组织和解释文献中不同标准之间关系的首次系统尝试。最后，我们研究了进行因果公平分析并提出一本公平食谱的最低因果假设，该假设使数据科学家能够评估不同影响和不同治疗的存在。

转移学习中最关键的问题之一是域适应的任务，其中目标是将在一个或多个源域中培训的算法应用于不同（但相关）的目标域。本文在域内存在协变量转变时，涉及域适应。解决此问题的现有因果推断方法的主要限制之一是可扩展性。为了克服这种困难，我们提出了一种避免穷举搜索的算法，并识别基于Markov毯子发现的源和目标域的不变因果特征。 SCTL不需要先前了解因果结构，干预措施的类型或干预目标。有一个与SCTL相关的内在位置，使其实现实际上可扩展且稳健，因为本地因果发现增加了计算独立性测试的力量，并使域适配的任务进行了计算地进行了易行的。我们通过低维和高维设置中的合成和实际数据集显示SCTL的可扩展性和稳健性。

We explore how observational and interventional causal discovery methods can be combined. A state-of-the-art observational causal discovery algorithm for time series capable of handling latent confounders and contemporaneous effects, called LPCMCI, is extended to profit from casual constraints found through randomized control trials. Numerical results show that, given perfect interventional constraints, the reconstructed structural causal models (SCMs) of the extended LPCMCI allow 84.6% of the time for the optimal prediction of the target variable. The implementation of interventional and observational causal discovery is modular, allowing causal constraints from other sources. The second part of this thesis investigates the question of regret minimizing control by simultaneously learning a causal model and planning actions through the causal model. The idea is that an agent to optimize a measured variable first learns the system's mechanics through observational causal discovery. The agent then intervenes on the most promising variable with randomized values allowing for the exploitation and generation of new interventional data. The agent then uses the interventional data to enhance the causal model further, allowing improved actions the next time. The extended LPCMCI can be favorable compared to the original LPCMCI algorithm. The numerical results show that detecting and using interventional constraints leads to reconstructed SCMs that allow 60.9% of the time for the optimal prediction of the target variable in contrast to the baseline of 53.6% when using the original LPCMCI algorithm. Furthermore, the induced average regret decreases from 1.2 when using the original LPCMCI algorithm to 1.0 when using the extended LPCMCI algorithm with interventional discovery.

This review presents empirical researchers with recent advances in causal inference, and stresses 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.

We present a new algorithm for Bayesian network structure learning, called Max-Min Hill-Climbing (MMHC). The algorithm combines ideas from local learning, constraint-based, and search-and-score techniques in a principled and effective way. It first reconstructs the skeleton of a Bayesian network and then performs a Bayesian-scoring greedy hill-climbing search to orient the edges. In our extensive empirical evaluation MMHC outperforms on average and in terms of various metrics several prototypical and state-of-the-art algorithms, namely the PC, Sparse Candidate, Three Phase Dependency Analysis, Optimal Reinsertion, Greedy Equivalence Search, and Greedy Search. These are the first empirical results simultaneously comparing most of the major Bayesian network algorithms against each other. MMHC offers certain theoretical advantages, specifically over the Sparse Candidate algorithm, corroborated by our experiments. MMHC and detailed results of our study are publicly available at http://www.dsl-lab.org/supplements/mmhc paper/mmhc index.html.

即使机器学习算法已经在数据科学中发挥了重要作用，但许多当前方法对输入数据提出了不现实的假设。由于不兼容的数据格式，或数据集中的异质，分层或完全缺少的数据片段，因此很难应用此类方法。作为解决方案，我们提出了一个用于样本表示，模型定义和培训的多功能，统一的框架，称为“ Hmill”。我们深入审查框架构建和扩展的机器学习的多个范围范式。从理论上讲，为HMILL的关键组件的设计合理，我们将通用近似定理的扩展显示到框架中实现的模型所实现的所有功能的集合。本文还包含有关我们实施中技术和绩效改进的详细讨论，该讨论将在MIT许可下发布供下载。该框架的主要资产是其灵活性，它可以通过相同的工具对不同的现实世界数据源进行建模。除了单独观察到每个对象的一组属性的标准设置外，我们解释了如何在框架中实现表示整个对象系统的图表中的消息推断。为了支持我们的主张，我们使用框架解决了网络安全域的三个不同问题。第一种用例涉及来自原始网络观察结果的IoT设备识别。在第二个问题中，我们研究了如何使用以有向图表示的操作系统的快照可以对恶意二进制文件进行分类。最后提供的示例是通过网络中实体之间建模域黑名单扩展的任务。在所有三个问题中，基于建议的框架的解决方案可实现与专业方法相当的性能。

Linear structural causal models (SCMs)-- in which each observed variable is generated by a subset of the other observed variables as well as a subset of the exogenous sources-- are pervasive in causal inference and casual discovery. However, for the task of causal discovery, existing work almost exclusively focus on the submodel where each observed variable is associated with a distinct source with non-zero variance. This results in the restriction that no observed variable can deterministically depend on other observed variables or latent confounders. In this paper, we extend the results on structure learning by focusing on a subclass of linear SCMs which do not have this property, i.e., models in which observed variables can be causally affected by any subset of the sources, and are allowed to be a deterministic function of other observed variables or latent confounders. This allows for a more realistic modeling of influence or information propagation in systems. We focus on the task of causal discovery form observational data generated from a member of this subclass. We derive a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for unique identifiability of the causal structure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that gives identifiability results for causal discovery under both latent confounding and deterministic relationships. Further, we propose an algorithm for recovering the underlying causal structure when the aforementioned conditions are satisfied. We validate our theoretical results both on synthetic and real datasets.

There has been a recent resurgence in the area of explainable artificial intelligence as researchers and practitioners seek to make their algorithms more understandable. Much of this research is focused on explicitly explaining decisions or actions to a human observer, and it should not be controversial to say that looking at how humans explain to each other can serve as a useful starting point for explanation in artificial intelligence. However, it is fair to say that most work in explainable artificial intelligence uses only the researchers' intuition of what constitutes a 'good' explanation. There exists vast and valuable bodies of research in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science of how people define, generate, select, evaluate, and present explanations, which argues that people employ certain cognitive biases and social expectations towards the explanation process. This paper argues that the field of explainable artificial intelligence should build on this existing research, and reviews relevant papers from philosophy, cognitive psychology/science, and social psychology, which study these topics. It draws out some important findings, and discusses ways that these can be infused with work on explainable artificial intelligence.

因果鉴定是因果推理文献的核心，在该文献中提出了完整的算法来识别感兴趣的因果问题。这些算法的有效性取决于访问正确指定的因果结构的限制性假设。在这项工作中，我们研究了可获得因果结构概率模型的环境。具体而言，因果图中的边缘是分配的概率，例如，可能代表来自领域专家的信念程度。另外，关于边缘的不确定的可能反映了特定统计检验的置信度。在这种情况下自然出现的问题是：给定这样的概率图和感兴趣的特定因果效应，哪些具有最高合理性的子图是什么？我们表明回答这个问题减少了解决NP-HARD组合优化问题，我们称之为边缘ID问题。我们提出有效的算法来近似此问题，并评估我们针对现实世界网络和随机生成图的算法。

In this review, we discuss approaches for learning causal structure from data, also called causal discovery. In particular, we focus on approaches for learning directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and various generalizations which allow for some variables to be unobserved in the available data. We devote special attention to two fundamental combinatorial aspects of causal structure learning. First, we discuss the structure of the search space over causal graphs. Second, we discuss the structure of equivalence classes over causal graphs, i.e., sets of graphs which represent what can be learned from observational data alone, and how these equivalence classes can be refined by adding interventional data.

We study experiment design for unique identification of the causal graph of a system where the graph may contain cycles. The presence of cycles in the structure introduces major challenges for experiment design as, unlike acyclic graphs, learning the skeleton of causal graphs with cycles may not be possible from merely the observational distribution. Furthermore, intervening on a variable in such graphs does not necessarily lead to orienting all the edges incident to it. In this paper, we propose an experiment design approach that can learn both cyclic and acyclic graphs and hence, unifies the task of experiment design for both types of graphs. We provide a lower bound on the number of experiments required to guarantee the unique identification of the causal graph in the worst case, showing that the proposed approach is order-optimal in terms of the number of experiments up to an additive logarithmic term. Moreover, we extend our result to the setting where the size of each experiment is bounded by a constant. For this case, we show that our approach is optimal in terms of the size of the largest experiment required for uniquely identifying the causal graph in the worst case.

In this paper we prove the so-called "Meek Conjecture". In particular, we show that if a DAG H is an independence map of another DAG G, then there exists a finite sequence of edge additions and covered edge reversals in G such that (1) after each edge modification H remains an independence map of G and ( 2) after all modifications G = H. As shown by Meek (1997), this result has an important consequence for Bayesian approaches to learning Bayesian networks from data: in the limit of large sample size, there exists a twophase greedy search algorithm that-when applied to a particular sparsely-connected search space-provably identifies a perfect map of the generative distribution if that perfect map is a DAG. We provide a new implementation of the search space, using equivalence classes as states, for which all operators used in the greedy search can be scored efficiently using local functions of the nodes in the domain. Finally, using both synthetic and real-world datasets, we demonstrate that the two-phase greedy approach leads to good solutions when learning with finite sample sizes.

了解因果关系有助于构建干预措施，以实现特定的目标并在干预下实现预测。随着学习因果关系的越来越重要，因果发现任务已经从使用传统方法推断出潜在的因果结构从观察数据到深度学习涉及的模式识别领域。大量数据的快速积累促进了具有出色可扩展性的因果搜索方法的出现。因果发现方法的现有摘要主要集中在基于约束，分数和FCM的传统方法上，缺乏针对基于深度学习的方法的完美分类和阐述，还缺乏一些考虑和探索因果关系的角度来探索因果发现方法范式。因此，我们根据变量范式将可能的因果发现任务分为三种类型，并分别给出三个任务的定义，定义和实例化每个任务的相关数据集以及同时构建的最终因果模型，然后审查不同任务的主要因果发现方法。最后，我们从不同角度提出了一些路线图，以解决因果发现领域的当前研究差距，并指出未来的研究方向。

由于算法预测对人类的影响增加，模型解释性已成为机器学习（ML）的重要问题。解释不仅可以帮助用户了解为什么ML模型做出某些预测，还可以帮助用户了解这些预测如何更改。在本论文中，我们研究了从三个有利位置的ML模型的解释性：算法，用户和教学法，并为解释性问题贡献了一些新颖的解决方案。

在文献中提出了各种各样的公平度量和可解释的人工智能（XAI）方法，以确定在关键现实环境中使用的机器学习模型中的偏差。但是，仅报告模型的偏差，或使用现有XAI技术生成解释不足以定位并最终减轻偏差源。在这项工作中，我们通过识别对这种行为的根本原因的训练数据的连贯子集来引入Gopher，该系统产生紧凑，可解释和意外模型行为的偏差或意外模型行为。具体而言，我们介绍了因果责任的概念，这些责任通过删除或更新其数据集来解决培训数据的程度可以解决偏差。建立在这一概念上，我们开发了一种有效的方法，用于生成解释模型偏差的顶级模式，该模型偏置利用来自ML社区的技术来实现因果责任，并使用修剪规则来管理模式的大搜索空间。我们的实验评估表明了Gopher在为识别和调试偏置来源产生可解释解释时的有效性。