22/02/2018 – Discovering Causal Structure with the PC Algorithm

The meeting was a success! Click here (.pdf, 2MB) to download the updated slides with a worked-out example of how the PC algorithm works, and contact Oisín Ryan (mailto:o.ryan@uu.nl) if you’d like to know more about the Causality Reading Group.

Oisín explaining the PC algorithm

Thursday 22/02/2018 at 15:00 in room B1.09

For this meeting, MSDSlab is teaming up with its sister Causality Reading Group, organized by Oisín Ryan. Oisín will explain the background and implementation of the PC algorithm and show how it can discover causal structure in a network of variables through smart use of conditional independence rules.

Source: pcalg package vignette, p.3 (Kalisch, Mächler, Colombo, Hauser, Maathuis, Bühlmann)

Activity: We will also be trying out the PC algorithm and its interpretation on a real dataset, if you’d like to join this activity, bring your laptop!

Preparation: install R, Rstudio, the pcalg package

Optional reading: Causation, Prediction and Search, Chapter 5 (freely available here: http://cognet.mit.edu/book/causation-prediction-and-search)