Overview

This book presents an overview of causal discovery, an emergent field with important developments in the last few years, and multiple applications in several fields.

Structure

The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides the necessary background on causal graphical models and causal reasoning. The second describes the main algorithms and techniques for causal discovery: (a) causal discovery from observational data, (b) causal discovery from interventional data, (c) causal discovery from temporal data, and (d) causal reinforcement learning. The third part provides several examples of causal discovery in practice, including applications in biomedicine, social sciences, artificial intelligence and robotics.

Topics and Features

Includes the necessary background material: a review of probability and graph theory, Bayesian networks, causal graphical models and causal reasoning

Covers the main types of causal discovery: learning from observational data, learning from interventional data, and learning from temporal data

Illustrates the application of causal discovery in practical problems

Includes some of the latest developments in the field, such as continuous optimization, causal event networks, causal discovery under subsampling, subject specific causal models, and causal reinforcement learning

Provides chapter exercises, including suggestions for research and programming projects

Intended Audience

This book can be used as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate or a graduate course on causal discovery for students of computer science, engineering, social sciences, etc. It can also be used as a complement to a course on causality, together with another text on causal reasoning. It could also serve as a reference book for professionals that want to apply causal models in different areas, or anyone who is interested in knowing the basis of these techniques.

The intended audience are students and professionals in computer science, statistics and engineering who want to know the principles of causal discovery and / or apply them in different domains. It could also be of interest to students and professionals in other areas who want to apply causal discovery, for instance in medicine and economics.