Related papers: POPE: Post Optimization Posterior Evaluation of Li…
The Projection on Proper elements (PoPe) is a novel method of code control dedicated to 1) checking the correct implementation of models, 2) determining the convergence of numerical methods and 3) characterizing the residual errors of any…
Probabilistic control design is founded on the principle that a rational agent attempts to match modelled with an arbitrary desired closed-loop system trajectory density. The framework was originally proposed as a tractable alternative to…
An efficient method for finding a better maximizer of computationally extensive probability distributions is proposed on the basis of a Bayesian optimization technique. A key idea of the proposed method is to use extreme values of…
Modern signal processing (SP) methods rely very heavily on probability and statistics to solve challenging SP problems. SP methods are now expected to deal with ever more complex models, requiring ever more sophisticated computational…
Stochastic computer simulations enable users to gain new insights into complex physical systems. Optimization is a common problem in this context: users seek to find model inputs that maximize the expected value of an objective function.…
Computer models are used as replacements for physical experiments in a large variety of applications. Nevertheless, direct use of the computer model for the ultimate scientific objective is often limited by the complexity and cost of the…
An emulator is a fast-to-evaluate statistical approximation of a detailed mathematical model (simulator). When used in lieu of simulators, emulators can expedite tasks that require many repeated evaluations, such as sensitivity analyses,…
Stochastic simulators are increasingly used to expand the frontier of scientific knowledge and inform decision-making across real-world contexts. Simulator calibration, a process by which internal model inputs are tuned to match some…
Evaluating query predicates on data samples is the only way to estimate their selectivity in certain scenarios. Finding a guaranteed optimal query plan is not a reasonable optimization goal in those cases as it might require an infinite…
Large language models (LLMs) have significant potential to improve operational efficiency in operations management. Deploying these models requires specifying a policy that governs response quality, shapes user experience, and influences…
We propose a global optimization algorithm based on the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) sampling framework. In this framework, the objective function is normalized to be a probabilistic density function (pdf), based on which a sequence of…
Probabilistic programs provide an expressive representation language for generative models. Given a probabilistic program, we are interested in the task of posterior inference: estimating a latent variable given a set of observed variables.…
While Bayesian Optimization (BO) is a very popular method for optimizing expensive black-box functions, it fails to leverage the experience of domain experts. This causes BO to waste function evaluations on bad design choices (e.g., machine…
We design a new myopic strategy for a wide class of sequential design of experiment (DOE) problems, where the goal is to collect data in order to to fulfil a certain problem specific goal. Our approach, Myopic Posterior Sampling (MPS), is…
A fundamental challenge in model-based offline reinforcement learning (RL) lies in the trade-off between generalization and robustness against exploitation errors in out-of-distribution (OOD) regions. While OOD samples may capture valid…
Every organism in an environment, whether biological, robotic or virtual, must be able to predict certain aspects of its environment in order to survive or perform whatever task is intended. It needs a model that is capable of estimating…
Model-based sequential approaches to discrete "black-box" optimization, including Bayesian optimization techniques, often access the same points multiple times for a given objective function in interest, resulting in many steps to find the…
Bayesian predictive probabilities are commonly used for interim monitoring of clinical trials through efficacy and futility stopping rules. Despite their usefulness, calculation of predictive probabilities, particularly in pre-experiment…
A new recalibration post-processing method is presented to improve the quality of the posterior approximation when using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) algorithms. Recalibration may be used in conjunction with existing…
Bayesian models quantify uncertainty and facilitate optimal decision-making in downstream applications. For most models, however, practitioners are forced to use approximate inference techniques that lead to sub-optimal decisions due to…