Scribd
Upload
3 views3 pages

Causal Network

Uploaded by

rsviniba96
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
3 views3 pages

Causal Network

Uploaded by

rsviniba96
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

CAUSAL NETWORK

Causal Bayesian networks, sometimes called Causal Diagrams, were devised to permit us
to represent causal asymmetries and to leverage the asymmetries towards reasoning with causal
information. The idea is to decide on arrow directionality by considerations that go beyond
probabilistic dependence and invoke a totally different type of judgment.

Joint Probability
The U-variables in these equations represent unmodeled variables, also called error terms or
disturbances, that perturb the functional relationship between each variable and its parents. For
example, may represent another potential source of wetness, in addition to Sprinkler and Rain—
perhaps MorningDew or FirefightingHelicopter.
The probability terms in the sum are obtained by computation on the original network, by any of
the standard inference algorithms. This equation is known as an adjustment formula; it is a
probability-weighted average of the influence of 𝑋𝑗 and its parents on 𝑋𝑖 , where the weights are
the priors on the parent values.

Backdoor Criterion
• we might know that she checks the weather before deciding whether to turn on the
sprinkler, but we might not know how she makes her decision
• The specific reason this is problematic in this instance is that we would like to predict the
effect of turning on the sprinkler on a downstream variable such as GreenerGrass, but the
adjustment formula must take into account not only the direct route from Sprinkler, but
also the “back door” route via Cloudy and Rain.
• If we knew the value of Rain, this back-door path would be blocked—which suggests that
there might be a way to write an adjustment formula that conditions on Rain instead of
Cloudy.

You might also like