arXiv subjects

Tarikul Islam

Publications and source records attributed to Tarikul Islam.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Identification and Estimation of Causal Estimands with Missing Not at Random Data

Missing not at random (MNAR) data pose significant challenges for causal inference, particularly when both confounders and the outcome are partially observed. Without additional assumptions beyond those required for causal inference, causal estimands are generally not identifiable under MNAR mechanisms. This paper first develops identification results for the causal estimand, the average treatment effect, under several plausible MNAR mechanisms using completeness conditions, and proposes an estimation approach based on the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. We further extend this identification and estimation framework to mediation analysis, enabling the estimation of natural direct and indirect effects under MNAR mechanisms. Through extensive simulation studies, we compare the proposed method with two widely used approaches for handling missing data, complete-case analysis and multiple imputation. The results show that the proposed method yields substantially lower bias under the considered MNAR mechanisms. Finally, we apply the proposed approach to NHANES data to estimate the causal effect of education on depression, with health condition as the mediator.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2026

Understanding the Usability of Cryptographic Verification Tools

Cryptographic protocol verification tools are widely used to analyze the security of complex protocols, yet how users interact with these tools remains comparatively understudied. We present an exploratory human-centered study of experienced users of Tamarin, ProVerif, and related protocol verifiers. Our survey included researchers, graduate students, and practitioners with hands-on experience using Tamarin, ProVerif, or related tools. The findings reveal usability barriers across the verification workflow, including difficulties debugging non-termination and performance issues, and the lack of systematic methods for validating formal models against real protocols. When proofs fail without concrete attacks, users commonly simplify models, add helper lemmas, and revisit modeling abstractions. Participants also called for actionable diagnostics, clearer explanations of results, visualization, and automation for recurring proof tasks. Our findings suggest that persistent usability challenges arise from the gap between protocol-level reasoning and the verifier's formal model, proof procedures, and diagnostic output. We derive concrete design priorities for improving the accessibility, interpretability, and usability of cryptographic protocol verification tools.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

A Unified Three-Stage Weighting Framework for Causal Inference and Mediation Analysis under Case-Control Sampling

Case-control studies are widely used in epidemiology and biomedical research because they provide substantial efficiency gains when outcomes are rare or prospective follow-up is impractical. However, retrospective outcome-dependent sampling distorts the population outcome distribution, creating fundamental challenges for causal inference. We propose a unified three-stage weighting (3S-weighting) framework for causal inference and causal mediation analysis from case--control studies. The proposed approach first estimates the unknown population outcome prevalence using density-ratio learning and label-shift correction combined with externally available covariate information. Next, prevalence-based design weights are used to reconstruct the target population distribution from the retrospective sample. Finally, stabilized causal and mediation weights are applied within a marginal structural modeling framework to estimate total and pathway-specific causal effects, including the pure direct effect, pure indirect effect, and interaction effect. Simulation studies demonstrate that conventional analyses that ignore retrospective sampling can produce substantial bias in both total and mediation effect estimates, whereas the proposed approach consistently recovers the target population causal parameters across a range of sampling scenarios. An application of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey further illustrates the practical implementation and utility of the proposed framework.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2017

The Accuracy of Cell-based Dynamic Traffic Assignment: Impact of Signal Control on System Optimality

Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) provides an approach to determine the optimal path and/or departure time based on the transportation network characteristics and user behavior (e.g., selfish or social). In the literature, most of the contributions study DTA problems without including traffic signal control in the framework. The few contributions that report signal control models are either mixed-integer or nonlinear formulations and computationally intractable. The only continuous linear signal control method presented in the literature is the Cycle-length Same as Discrete Time-interval (CSDT) control scheme. This model entails a trade-off between cycle-length and cell-length. Furthermore, this approach compromises accuracy and usability of the solutions. In this study, we propose a novel signal control model namely, Signal Control with Realistic Cycle length (SCRC) which overcomes the trade-off between cycle-length and cell-length and strikes a balance between complexity and accuracy. The underlying idea of this model is to use a different time scale for the cycle-length. This time scale can be set to any multiple of the time slot of the Dynamic Network Loading (DNL) model (e.g. CTM, TTM, and LTM) and enables us to set realistic lengths for the signal control cycles. Results show, the SCRC model not only attains accuracy comparable to the CSDT model but also more resilient against extreme traffic conditions. Furthermore, the presented approach substantially reduces computational complexity and can attain solution faster.

eess.SY↗