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Research paperInterpretability · Efficiency & Inference · Reinforcement Learning1 source · Oct 7, 2026

AdaPS-LiNGAM: Adaptive Predecessor Selection for Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Models under Small-Sample Settings

This challenge also arises in the linear non-Gaussian acyclic model (LiNGAM), an identifiable framework for causal discovery from observational data.

Key points

  • Causal discovery becomes particularly challenging when the available sample size is small relative to the number of variables.
  • We establish a structural limitation of this procedure: when the number of variables exceeds the sample size, repeated residualization necessarily becomes degenerate before the full causal order can be determined.
  • Our analysis further reveals that each residual can be reconstructed using only a graph-determined subset of variables already placed earlier in the causal order, termed the active boundary.
  • Experiments on synthetic data demonstrate that AdaPS-LiNGAM provides accurate causal-structure recovery in sample-limited settings and degrades more gradually as the sample size decreases.

Sources (1)

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