论文标题
使用嵌入来进行因果关系估计社交网络中的同伴影响
Using Embeddings for Causal Estimation of Peer Influence in Social Networks
论文作者
论文摘要
储层计算是预测湍流的有力工具，其简单的架构具有处理大型系统的计算效率。然而，其实现通常需要完整的状态向量测量和系统非线性知识。我们使用非线性投影函数将系统测量扩展到高维空间，然后将其输入到储层中以获得预测。我们展示了这种储层计算网络在时空混沌系统上的应用，该系统模拟了湍流的若干特征。我们表明，使用径向基函数作为非线性投影器，即使只有部分观测并且不知道控制方程，也能稳健地捕捉复杂的系统非线性。最后，我们表明，当测量稀疏、不完整且带有噪声，甚至控制方程变得不准确时，我们的网络仍然可以产生相当准确的预测，从而为实际湍流系统的无模型预测铺平了道路。
We address the problem of using observational data to estimate peer contagion effects, the influence of treatments applied to individuals in a network on the outcomes of their neighbors. A main challenge to such estimation is that homophily - the tendency of connected units to share similar latent traits - acts as an unobserved confounder for contagion effects. Informally, it's hard to tell whether your friends have similar outcomes because they were influenced by your treatment, or whether it's due to some common trait that caused you to be friends in the first place. Because these common causes are not usually directly observed, they cannot be simply adjusted for. We describe an approach to perform the required adjustment using node embeddings learned from the network itself. The main aim is to perform this adjustment nonparametrically, without functional form assumptions on either the process that generated the network or the treatment assignment and outcome processes. The key contributions are to nonparametrically formalize the causal effect in a way that accounts for homophily, and to show how embedding methods can be used to identify and estimate this effect. Code is available at https://github.com/IrinaCristali/Peer-Contagion-on-Networks.
