Fig. 1

The proportion that correctly pinpoint the top 4 pathways among 500 simulations under two criteria when the sample size is 500 and the proportion of nonlinear components is 40%.The nonlinear pattern is (a) \( \boldsymbol{\varphi} \left({\boldsymbol{x}}_{\boldsymbol{i}}\right)=\sqrt{\boldsymbol{C}-{\boldsymbol{x}}_{\boldsymbol{i}}^{\mathbf{2}}}+\boldsymbol{\varepsilon} \), (b) φ(x_i) =  cos (x_i) + ε, (c) mixed nonlinear pattern(6 edges having cosine and 3 edges having quadratic relationship) and (d) \( \boldsymbol{\varphi} \left({\boldsymbol{x}}_{\boldsymbol{i}}\right)={\boldsymbol{x}}_{\boldsymbol{i}}^{\mathbf{2}}+\boldsymbol{\varepsilon} \) respectively