Dear friends in causality research, ------------------------------------- This greeting from UCLA Causality blog contains: A. News items concerning causality research, B. New postings, publications, slides and videos, C. New questions and some answers. http://www.mii.ucla.edu/causality/.
1. Journal of Causal Inference - Vol. 1, Issue 2 ------------------------------------------------- The second issue of the Journal of Causal Inference is on its way, and a posting date has been set for December 23 2013. The first issue, can be viewed here: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jci.2013.1.issue-1/issue-files/jci.2013.1.issue-1.xml or here: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jci As always, submissions are welcome on all aspects of causal analysis, especially those deemed heretical. 2. Causality book - new printing ------------------------------ The 3rd printing of Causality (2009, 2nd ed.) is finally out (as of Sept. 1), corrected and improved. If you have an older printing and do not wish to buy another copy, all changes are marked in red here: http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-09/causality2-errata-updated7_3_13.pdf 3. Special Issue on Counterfactuals ------------------------- The latest issue of Cognitive Science is dedicated to counterfactual reasoning. Edited by Stephen Sloman, the Table of Content and on-line version are available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.2013.37.issue-6/issuetoc 4. A Strange article in Science Magazine. -------------------------------------- Two articles in Science Magazine and Nature were brought to our attention: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6106/496.abstract http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v8/n12/full/nphys2497.html The author claims that causal effects can be inferred from correlation, using an extended version of Granger Causality. To me this sounds like squaring the circle; perhaps one of our readers can illuminate us. 5. Calls for papers on causality -------------------------- 5.1 Isabell Guyon sent us a call for paper for Special Topic of JMLR on Causality and Experimental Design. See: http://clopinet.com/isabelle/Projects/NIPS2013/Causality_Special_Topic_2014.html <blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote> 5.2 The ACM TITS journal is planning a Special Issue on Causal Discovery and Inference, and </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote> has issued a Call for Papers. </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote> See: h ttp://tist.acm.org/CFPs/TIST-SI-CDI.html </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote> 6. Dennis Lindley, dead at 90 ------------------------------- On a sad note, Dennis Lindley, a pioneer in Bayesian inference died last week, at age 90. Lindley brought the "SEEING vs. DOING" distinction to the attention of the statistics community: http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/lindley-rev.pdf He also adapted the causal interpretation of Simpson's paradox ahead of his peers. We will miss his intellect, curiosity and integrity. A true gentleman. 7. New postings on this blog. --------------------------------- Since our last greetings, the following items were posted on this blog (you can view them on http://www.mii.ucla.edu/causality/. Aug. 9 , 2013, Larry Wasserman on JSM 2013 Oct. 26, 2013, Comments on Kenny's Summary of Causal Mediation Nov. 10, 2013, On Heckman and Pinto Nov. 19, 2013, The Key to Understanding Mediation Dec. 14 2013, "But where does the graph come from?" 8. New slides and videos available -------------------------------------- * Slides of a tutorial on "Causes and Counterfactuals" preseted at NIPS-2013 (by Pearl and Bareinboim) are available here: http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/nips-dec2013-pearl-bareinboim-tutorial.pdf http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~eb/nips-dec2013-pearl-bareinboim-tutorial-full.pdf * Video of an introductory lecture presented to economists (at Stanford) is available here: http://gsb-mediasite.stanford.edu/mediasite/Play/4ee5b390c7ef456c9ba0b11d1a519d4b1d 9. New scientific questions and some answers -------------------------------- There are new postings on our home page http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/csl_papers.html which might earn your attention. Among them: 420 - J. Pearl, "Reflections on Heckman and Pinto's 'Causal Analysis after Haavelmo", where I defend Haavelmo's original theory of intervention against a Fisherian surrogate proposed in Heckman and Pinto (2013). http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r420.pdf 419 - Bareinboin, Lee, Honavar, Pearl "Transportability from Multiple Enironments with Limited Experiments" Where we ask (and answer) whether it is possible to combine experimental findings from many heterogeneous studies to get what we need. http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r419.pdf 417 - Pearl and Mohan "Recoverability and Testability of Missing Data." Where we explain missing-data problems to the uninitiated using graphical models, and illustrate the concepts of recoverability and testability. http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r417.pdf 416 - J. Pearl "The Mathematics of Causal Inference" A summary of a Lecture given at JSM-2013, which compiles the main mathematical results in causal inference. http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r416.pdf 414 - J. Pearl, "Understanding Simpson's Paradox" http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r414.pdf where I introduce a guessing game that exhibits perpetual reversals and argue that the paradox can safely be titled: "resolved" 410 - Mohan, Pearl and Tian "Graphical Models for Inference with Missing data (Newly Revised) http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r410.pdf Where we take a fresh look at missing data problems from a causal inference perspective and propose a new taxonomy for misssing data mechanisms. 363 - Pearl and Paz, "Confounding Equivalence in Causal Analysis" (Revised Oct 2013) We ask: When would an adjustment for T introduce the same bias as an adjustment for Z, and we answer it by extending the results of the 2010 version of this paper. http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r343w.pdf Wishing you a happy and productive new year, Judea ----------------------------------------------- Professor Judea Pearl Director, Cognitive Systems Laboratory Room 4514-4515 Boelter Hall University of California Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Avenue Los Angeles, California 90095-1600 ju...@cs.ucla.edu Tel. (310) 825-3243 Fax (310) 794-5057 http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~judea/ http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/csl_papers.html _______________________________________________ uai mailing list uai@ENGR.ORST.EDU https://secure.engr.oregonstate.edu/mailman/listinfo/uai
