Related papers: Selecting Computations: Theory and Applications

Contextual bandit algorithms are essential for solving many real-world interactive machine learning problems. Despite multiple recent successes on statistically and computationally efficient methods, the practical behavior of these…

Sequential decision-making is central to sustainable agricultural management and precision agriculture, where resource inputs must be optimized under uncertainty and over time. However, such decisions must often be made with limited…

As machine learning is increasingly used to help make decisions, there is a demand for these decisions to be explainable. Arguably, the most explainable machine learning models use decision rules. This paper focuses on decision sets, a type…

We propose online algorithms for sequential learning in the contextual multi-armed bandit setting. Our approach is to partition the context space and then optimally combine all of the possible mappings between the partition regions and the…

We consider model selection in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. Given a set of base learning algorithms, an effective model selection strategy adapts to the best learning algorithm in an online fashion. We show that by…

Partial monitoring is an expressive framework for sequential decision-making with an abundance of applications, including graph-structured and dueling bandits, dynamic pricing and transductive feedback models. We survey and extend recent…

The scenario-based optimization approach (`scenario approach') provides an intuitive way of approximating the solution to chance-constrained optimization programs, based on finding the optimal solution under a finite number of sampled…

We study the problem of model selection in bandit scenarios in the presence of nested policy classes, with the goal of obtaining simultaneous adversarial and stochastic ("best of both worlds") high-probability regret guarantees. Our…

Decision making under uncertain environments in the maximization of expected reward while minimizing its risk is one of the ubiquitous problems in many subjects. Here, we introduce a novel problem setting in stochastic bandit optimization…

Bayesian aggregation lets election forecasters combine diverse sources of information, such as state polls and economic and political indicators: as in our collaboration with The Economist magazine. However, the demands of real-time…

In this paper, we propose an approach for an application of Bayesian optimization using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) and concepts from the statistical physics of classical systems. Our method leverages the power of modern machine learning…

We study the problem of model selection in batch policy optimization: given a fixed, partial-feedback dataset and $M$ model classes, learn a policy with performance that is competitive with the policy derived from the best model class. We…

Motivated by problems of learning to rank long item sequences, we introduce a variant of the cascading bandit model that considers flexible length sequences with varying rewards and losses. We formulate two generative models for this…

A number of algorithms have been developed to solve probabilistic inference problems on belief networks. These algorithms can be divided into two main groups: exact techniques which exploit the conditional independence revealed when the…

The contextual bandit has been identified as a powerful framework to formulate the recommendation process as a sequential decision-making process, where each item is regarded as an arm and the objective is to minimize the regret of $T$…

We consider a simulation optimization problem for a context-dependent decision-making. A Gaussian mixture model is proposed to capture the performance clustering phenomena of context-dependent designs. Under a Bayesian framework, we develop…

In this work, we study Bayesian quantum parameter estimation given a finite number of uses of the process encoding one or more unknown physical quantities. For multiple uses, it is conventional to classify quantum metrological protocols as…

Efficient sampling from constraint manifolds, and thereby generating a diverse set of solutions for feasibility problems, is a fundamental challenge. We consider the case where a problem is factored, that is, the underlying nonlinear…

Gathering labeled data to train well-performing machine learning models is one of the critical challenges in many applications. Active learning aims at reducing the labeling costs by an efficient and effective allocation of costly labeling…

Finite-horizon sequential experimental design (SED) arises naturally in many contexts, including hyperparameter tuning in machine learning among more traditional settings. Computing the optimal policy for such problems requires solving…