# BottomUpParceLiNGAM¶

## Model¶

This method assumes an extension of the basic LiNGAM model [1] to hidden common cause cases. Specifically, this implements Algorithm 1 of [3] except the Step 2. Similarly to the basic LiNGAM model [1], this method makes the following assumptions:

1. Linearity
2. Non-Gaussian continuous error variables (except at most one)
3. Acyclicity

However, it allows the following hidden common causes:

1. Only exogenous observed variables may share hidden common causes.

This is a simpler version of the latent variable LiNGAM [2] that extends the basic LiNGAM model to hidden common causes. Note that the latent variable LiNGAM [2] allows the existence of hidden common causes between any observed variables. However, this kind of causal graph structures are often assumed in the classic structural equation modelling [4].

References

 [1] (1, 2) S. Shimizu, P. O. Hoyer, A. Hyvärinen, and A. J. Kerminen. A linear non-gaussian acyclic model for causal discovery. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 7:2003-2030, 2006.
 [2] (1, 2) P. O. Hoyer, S. Shimizu, A. Kerminen, and M. Palviainen. Estimation of causal effects using linear non-gaussian causal models with hidden variables. International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, 49(2): 362-378, 2008.
 [3] T. Tashiro, S. Shimizu, A. Hyvärinen, T. Washio. ParceLiNGAM: a causal ordering method robust against latent confounders. Neural computation, 26(1): 57-83, 2014.
 [4] Bollen. Structural Equations With Latent Variables, 1984, Wiley.

## Import and settings¶

In this example, we need to import numpy, pandas, and graphviz in addition to lingam.

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import graphviz
import lingam
from lingam.utils import print_causal_directions, print_dagc, make_dot

import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

print([np.__version__, pd.__version__, graphviz.__version__, lingam.__version__])

np.set_printoptions(precision=3, suppress=True)

['1.16.2', '0.24.2', '0.11.1', '1.5.4']


## Test data¶

First, we generate a causal structure with 7 variables. Then we create a dataset with 6 variables from x0 to x5, with x6 being the latent variable for x2 and x3.

np.random.seed(1000)

x6 = np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x3 = 2.0*x6 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x0 = 0.5*x3 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x2 = 2.0*x6 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x1 = 0.5*x0 + 0.5*x2 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x5 = 0.5*x0 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)
x4 = 0.5*x0 - 0.5*x2 + np.random.uniform(size=1000)

# The latent variable x6 is not included.
X = pd.DataFrame(np.array([x0, x1, x2, x3, x4, x5]).T, columns=['x0', 'x1', 'x2', 'x3', 'x4', 'x5'])


x0 x1 x2 x3 x4 x5
0 1.505949 2.667827 2.029420 1.463708 0.615387 1.157907
1 1.379130 1.721744 0.965613 0.801952 0.919654 0.957148
2 1.436825 2.845166 2.773506 2.533417 -0.616746 0.903326
3 1.562885 2.205270 1.080121 1.192257 1.240595 1.411295
4 1.940721 2.974182 2.140298 1.886342 0.451992 1.770786

m = np.array([[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
[0.5, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.0],
[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.0],
[0.5, 0.0,-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
[0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]])

dot = make_dot(m)

# Save pdf
dot.render('dag')

# Save png
dot.format = 'png'
dot.render('dag')

dot


## Causal Discovery¶

To run causal discovery, we create a BottomUpParceLiNGAM object and call the fit method.

model = lingam.BottomUpParceLiNGAM()
model.fit(X)

<lingam.bottom_up_parce_lingam.BottomUpParceLiNGAM at 0x2098ee24860>


Using the causal_order_ properties, we can see the causal ordering as a result of the causal discovery. x2 and x3, which have latent confounders as parents, are stored in a list without causal ordering.

model.causal_order_

[[2, 3], 0, 5, 1, 4]


Also, using the adjacency_matrix_ properties, we can see the adjacency matrix as a result of the causal discovery. The coefficients between variables with latent confounders are np.nan.

model.adjacency_matrix_

array([[ 0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.506,  0.   ,  0.   ],
[ 0.499,  0.   ,  0.495,  0.007,  0.   ,  0.   ],
[ 0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ,    nan,  0.   ,  0.   ],
[ 0.   ,  0.   ,    nan,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ],
[ 0.448,  0.   , -0.451,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ],
[ 0.48 ,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ,  0.   ]])


We can draw a causal graph by utility funciton.

make_dot(model.adjacency_matrix_)


## Independence between error variables¶

To check if the LiNGAM assumption is broken, we can get p-values of independence between error variables. The value in the i-th row and j-th column of the obtained matrix shows the p-value of the independence of the error variables $$e_i$$ and $$e_j$$.

p_values = model.get_error_independence_p_values(X)
print(p_values)

[[0.    0.491   nan   nan 0.763 0.2  ]
[0.491 0.      nan   nan 0.473 0.684]
[  nan   nan 0.      nan   nan   nan]
[  nan   nan   nan 0.      nan   nan]
[0.763 0.473   nan   nan 0.    0.427]
[0.2   0.684   nan   nan 0.427 0.   ]]


## Bootstrapping¶

We call bootstrap() method instead of fit(). Here, the second argument specifies the number of bootstrap sampling.

import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore', category=UserWarning)

model = lingam.BottomUpParceLiNGAM()
result = model.bootstrap(X, n_sampling=100)


## Causal Directions¶

Since BootstrapResult object is returned, we can get the ranking of the causal directions extracted by get_causal_direction_counts() method. In the following sample code, n_directions option is limited to the causal directions of the top 8 rankings, and min_causal_effect option is limited to causal directions with a coefficient of 0.01 or more.

cdc = result.get_causal_direction_counts(n_directions=8, min_causal_effect=0.01, split_by_causal_effect_sign=True)


We can check the result by utility function.

print_causal_directions(cdc, 100)

x4 <--- x0 (b>0) (45.0%)
x4 <--- x2 (b<0) (45.0%)
x1 <--- x0 (b>0) (41.0%)
x1 <--- x2 (b>0) (41.0%)
x5 <--- x0 (b>0) (26.0%)
x1 <--- x3 (b>0) (21.0%)
x0 <--- x3 (b>0) (12.0%)
x5 <--- x2 (b>0) (7.0%)


## Directed Acyclic Graphs¶

Also, using the get_directed_acyclic_graph_counts() method, we can get the ranking of the DAGs extracted. In the following sample code, n_dags option is limited to the dags of the top 3 rankings, and min_causal_effect option is limited to causal directions with a coefficient of 0.01 or more.

dagc = result.get_directed_acyclic_graph_counts(n_dags=3, min_causal_effect=0.01, split_by_causal_effect_sign=True)


We can check the result by utility function.

print_dagc(dagc, 100)

DAG[0]: 33.0%
DAG[1]: 13.0%
x4 <--- x0 (b>0)
x4 <--- x2 (b<0)
DAG[2]: 7.0%
x1 <--- x0 (b>0)
x1 <--- x2 (b>0)


## Probability¶

Using the get_probabilities() method, we can get the probability of bootstrapping.

prob = result.get_probabilities(min_causal_effect=0.01)
print(prob)

[[0.   0.01 0.   0.12 0.01 0.  ]
[0.41 0.   0.41 0.21 0.   0.  ]
[0.   0.   0.   0.02 0.   0.  ]
[0.   0.   0.   0.   0.   0.  ]
[0.45 0.03 0.45 0.02 0.   0.07]
[0.26 0.01 0.07 0.02 0.   0.  ]]


## Total Causal Effects¶

Using the get_total_causal_effects() method, we can get the list of total causal effect. The total causal effects we can get are dictionary type variable. We can display the list nicely by assigning it to pandas.DataFrame. Also, we have replaced the variable index with a label below.

causal_effects = result.get_total_causal_effects(min_causal_effect=0.01)

# Assign to pandas.DataFrame for pretty display
df = pd.DataFrame(causal_effects)
labels = [f'x{i}' for i in range(X.shape[1])]
df['from'] = df['from'].apply(lambda x : labels[x])
df['to'] = df['to'].apply(lambda x : labels[x])
df

from to effect probability
0 x0 x5 0.515510 0.12
1 x0 x1 0.477885 0.11
2 x0 x4 0.494946 0.11
3 x2 x1 0.482657 0.02
4 x2 x4 -0.490889 0.02
5 x3 x0 0.511008 0.01
6 x3 x1 0.653876 0.01
7 x3 x2 0.790837 0.01
8 x3 x4 -0.126227 0.01
9 x3 x5 0.265528 0.01

We can easily perform sorting operations with pandas.DataFrame.

df.sort_values('effect', ascending=False).head()

from to effect probability
7 x3 x2 0.790837 0.01
6 x3 x1 0.653876 0.01
0 x0 x5 0.515510 0.12
5 x3 x0 0.511008 0.01
2 x0 x4 0.494946 0.11

df.sort_values('probability', ascending=True).head()

from to effect probability
5 x3 x0 0.511008 0.01
6 x3 x1 0.653876 0.01
7 x3 x2 0.790837 0.01
8 x3 x4 -0.126227 0.01
9 x3 x5 0.265528 0.01

And with pandas.DataFrame, we can easily filter by keywords. The following code extracts the causal direction towards x1.

df[df['to']=='x1'].head()

from to effect probability
1 x0 x1 0.477885 0.11
3 x2 x1 0.482657 0.02
6 x3 x1 0.653876 0.01

Because it holds the raw data of the total causal effect (the original data for calculating the median), it is possible to draw a histogram of the values of the causal effect, as shown below.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
sns.set()
%matplotlib inline

from_index = 0 # index of x0
to_index = 5 # index of x5
plt.hist(result.total_effects_[:, to_index, from_index])


## Bootstrap Probability of Path¶

Using the get_paths() method, we can explore all paths from any variable to any variable and calculate the bootstrap probability for each path. The path will be output as an array of variable indices. For example, the array [3, 0, 1] shows the path from variable X3 through variable X0 to variable X1.

from_index = 3 # index of x3
to_index = 1 # index of x0

pd.DataFrame(result.get_paths(from_index, to_index))

path effect probability
0 [3, 1] 0.028621 0.23
1 [3, 0, 1] 0.255185 0.11
2 [3, 2, 1] 0.372204 0.02