English
Related papers

Related papers: Estimation from Pairwise Comparisons: Sharp Minima…

200 papers

We consider a class of submodular maximization problems in which decision-makers have limited access to the objective function. We explore scenarios where the decision-maker can observe only pairwise information, i.e., can evaluate the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-02-09 Andrew Downie , Bahman Gharesifard , Stephen L. Smith

The key point limits to define the {\it statistical model} describing the data distribution. Hence, it turns out that the characteristics related to the so-called. Inverse Tully-Fisher relation and the Direct relation are maximum likelyhood…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 R. Triay

Pairwise human-preference platforms such as Chatbot Arena have become central to large language model (LLM) evaluation, yet reliable task-specific ranking remains challenging. Global leaderboards mask task heterogeneity, while ranking each…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-29 Jiachun Li , David Simchi-Levi , Will Wei Sun

This paper considers pairs of optimization problems that are defined from a single input and for which it is desired to find a good approximation to either one of the problems. In many instances, it is possible to efficiently find an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2009-09-11 David Eppstein

We address the new problem of estimating a piece-wise constant signal with the purpose of detecting its change points and the levels of clusters. Our approach is to model it as a nonparametric penalized least square model selection on a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-12-04 Othmane Mazhar , Cristian R. Rojas , Carlo Fischione , Mohammad R. Hesamzadeh

This paper introduces the Bradley-Terry Regression Trunk model, a novel probabilistic approach for the analysis of preference data expressed through paired comparison rankings. In some cases, it may be reasonable to assume that the…

Evaluation in NLP is usually done by comparing the scores of competing systems independently averaged over a common set of test instances. In this work, we question the use of averages for aggregating evaluation scores into a final number…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2021-10-22 Maxime Peyrard , Wei Zhao , Steffen Eger , Robert West

Aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences is crucial in ensuring desirable and controllable model behaviors. Current methods, such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Yang Zhao , Yixin Wang , Mingzhang Yin

The Rasch model, a classical model in the item response theory, is widely used in psychometrics to model the relationship between individuals' latent traits and their binary responses to assessments or questionnaires. In this paper, we…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-31 Yuepeng Yang , Cong Ma

We study a class of convex-concave min-max problems in which the coupled component of the objective is linear in at least one of the two decision vectors. We identify such problem structure as interpolating between the bilinearly and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-10 Ronak Mehta , Jelena Diakonikolas , Zaid Harchaoui

Given partially observed pairwise comparison data generated by the Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model, we study the problem of top-$k$ ranking. That is, to optimally identify the set of top-$k$ players. We derive the minimax rate with respect…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-07-16 Pinhan Chen , Chao Gao , Anderson Y. Zhang

This paper concerns with statistical estimation and inference for the ranking problems based on pairwise comparisons with additional covariate information such as the attributes of the compared items. Despite extensive studies, few prior…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-03-26 Jianqing Fan , Jikai Hou , Mengxin Yu

The trapping redundancy of a linear code is the number of rows of a smallest parity-check matrix such that no submatrix forms an $(a,b)$-trapping set. This concept was first introduced in the context of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2016-11-15 Yu Tsunoda , Yuichiro Fujiwara

Suppose that we wish to estimate a vector $\mathbf{x}$ from a set of binary paired comparisons of the form "$\mathbf{x}$ is closer to $\mathbf{p}$ than to $\mathbf{q}$" for various choices of vectors $\mathbf{p}$ and $\mathbf{q}$. The…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-08-31 Andrew K. Massimino , Mark A. Davenport

We study the asymptotics related to the following matching criteria for two independent realizations of point processes X\sim X and Y\sim Y. Given l>0, X\cap [0,l) serves as a template. For each t>0, the matching score between the template…

Probability · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Zhiyi Chi

LLM confidence calibration is often evaluated by comparing two signals: token-probability scores and verbalized confidence. These signals are sometimes treated as direct readouts of model uncertainty, but their comparison depends on…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Hankyeol Kim , Pilsung Kang

A large body of work in machine learning has focused on the problem of learning a close approximation to an underlying combinatorial function, given a small set of labeled examples. However, for real-valued functions, cardinal labels might…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-05-31 Maria-Florina Balcan , Ellen Vitercik , Colin White

Many algorithms for processing probabilistic networks are dependent on the topological properties of the problem's structure. Such algorithms (e.g., clustering, conditioning) are effective only if the problem has a sparse graph captured by…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-18 Yousri El Fattah , Rina Dechter

Pairwise preference learning is central to machine learning, with recent applications in aligning language models with human preferences. A typical dataset consists of triplets $(x, y^+, y^-)$, where response $y^+$ is preferred over…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Rattana Pukdee , Maria-Florina Balcan , Pradeep Ravikumar

A supervised ranking model, despite its advantage of being effective, usually involves complex processing - typically multiple stages of task-specific pre-training and fine-tuning. This has motivated researchers to explore simpler pipelines…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-10-08 Nilanjan Sinhababu , Andrew Parry , Debasis Ganguly , Debasis Samanta , Pabitra Mitra