Search results for "Causal structure"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Drift and evolutionary forces
2016
This arride analyzes the view of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces. The analogy with Newtonian mechanics has been challenged due to the alleged mismatch between drift and the other evolutionary forces. Since genetic drifr has no direction severa! authors tried to protect its status as a force: denying its lack of directionality, extending the notion of force and looking for a force in physics which also lacks of direction. I analyse these approaches, and although this strategy finally succeeds, this discussion overlooks the crucial point on the debate between causalists and statisticalists: the causal status of evolutionary theoty.; El presente artículo analiza la visión de la teorí…
The anatomy and causal structure of a corporate myth: Nokia by the book
2014
In this paper we conceptualise explanations of company-specific commercial performance as corporate myths. To improve our understanding of anatomy and causal structure of corporate myths, we analyse publications that deal with Nokia’s historical transformation from a lossmaking 1980s conglomerate to a focused and successful telecommunications company in the early 1990s. From a corpus of related literature, 89 causal arguments are identified and analysed in terms of the logic of the arguments employed. The analysis shows that (1) most existing analyses offer either a specific or a biased explanation for Nokia’s success; (2) very few explanations are either plausible or logical; (3) it is mos…
Newtonian and relativistic location systems
2008
The theory of location systems involves the geometric and physical description of the protocols allowing the realization of coordinate systems. In this communication, the incidence of the space-time causal structure (Newtonian or relativistic) on the construction of location systems is remarked. Specifically, we focus our attention: (i) on the construction of Newtonian emission coordinates that are contrasted with those associated with relativistic positioning systems, and (ii) on the role played by non-absolute synchronizations (like the one provided by the local Solar time) in the comprehension of Newtonian and relativistic location systems.
Study Design in Causal Models
2014
The causal assumptions, the study design and the data are the elements required for scientific inference in empirical research. The research is adequately communicated only if all of these elements and their relations are described precisely. Causal models with design describe the study design and the missing-data mechanism together with the causal structure and allow the direct application of causal calculus in the estimation of the causal effects. The flow of the study is visualized by ordering the nodes of the causal diagram in two dimensions by their causal order and the time of the observation. Conclusions on whether a causal or observational relationship can be estimated from the coll…
Identifying Causal Effects with the R Package causaleffect
2017
Do-calculus is concerned with estimating the interventional distribution of an action from the observed joint probability distribution of the variables in a given causal structure. All identifiable causal effects can be derived using the rules of do-calculus, but the rules themselves do not give any direct indication whether the effect in question is identifiable or not. Shpitser and Pearl constructed an algorithm for identifying joint interventional distributions in causal models, which contain unobserved variables and induce directed acyclic graphs. This algorithm can be seen as a repeated application of the rules of do-calculus and known properties of probabilities, and it ultimately eit…