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Evidential pluralism, epistemic causality and mixed methods research Ghent University
In this essay, I first reflect on the notion of epistemic causality which, according to Shan and Williamson, complements the idea of evidential pluralism. Then, I shift my attention to mixed methods research. While I agree that evidential pluralism provides a strong philosophical foundation for this approach, I argue that there is an alternative, equally strong foundation that focuses on explanation rather than on evidence.
Quantum causality constraints on kappa-Minkowski space-time Hasselt University
The kappa-Minkoswki space-time provides a (quantum) noncommutative deformation of the usual Minkowski space-time. However, a notion of causality is difficult to be defined in such a space with noncommutative time. In this paper, we define a notion of causality on a (1 + 1)-dimensional kappa-Minkoswki space-time using the more general framework of Lorentzian noncommutative geometry. We show that this notion allows specific causal relations, but ...
Extending the spectral decomposition of Granger causality to include instantaneous influences : application to the control mechanisms of heart rate variability Ghent University
Assessing Granger causality (GC) intended as the influence, in terms of reduction of variance of surprise, that a driver variable exerts on a given target, requires a suitable treatment of ‘instantaneous’ effects, i.e. influences due to interactions whose time scale is much faster than the time resolution of the measurements, due to unobserved confounders or insufficient sampling rate that cannot be increased because the mechanism of generation ...
Caution against examining the role of reverse causality in Mendelian Randomization Ghent University
Recently, Mendelian Randomization (MR) has gained in popularity as a concept to assess the causal relationship between phenotypes in genetic association studies. An extension of standard MR methodology, the MR Steiger approach, has recently been developed to infer the causal direction between two phenotypes in prospective studies. Through simulation studies, we examined and quantified the ability of the MR Steiger approach to determine the ...
Evaluation of directed causality measures and lag estimations in multivariate time-series Ghent University
The detection of causal effects among simultaneous observations provides knowledge about the underlying network, and is a topic of interests in many scientific areas. Over the years different causality measures have been developed, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. However, an extensive evaluation study is missing. In this work we consider some of the best-known causality measures i.e., cross-correlation, (conditional) Granger ...
Causality and the modeling of the measurement process in quantum theory Vrije Universiteit Brussel
In this paper we provide a general account of the causal models which attempt to provide a solution to the famous measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics (QM). We will argue that'leaving aside instrumentalism which restricts the physical meaning of QM to the algorithmic prediction of measurement outcomes'the many interpretations which can be found in the literature can be distinguished through the way they model the measurement process, ...
Multiscale Granger causality analysis by à trous wavelet transform Ghent University
Since interactions in neural systems occur across multiple temporal scales, it is likely that information flow will exhibit a multiscale structure, thus requiring a multiscale generalization of classical temporal precedence causality analysis like Granger's approach. However, the computation of multiscale measures of information dynamics is complicated by theoretical and practical issues such as filtering and undersampling: to overcome these ...
On the interpretability and computational reliability of frequency-domain Granger causality Ghent University
This Correspondence article is a comment which directly relates to the paper “A study of problems encountered in Granger causality analysis from a neuroscience perspective” (Stokes and Purdon, 2017). We agree that interpretation issues of Granger causality (GC) in neuroscience exist, partially due to the historically unfortunate use of the name “causality”, as described in previous literature. On the other hand, we think that Stokes and Purdon ...