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Motivated by a natural problem in online model selection with bandit information, we introduce and analyze a best arm identification problem in the rested bandit setting, wherein arm expected losses decrease with the number of times the arm…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-12-08 Leonardo Cella , Claudio Gentile , Massimiliano Pontil

We propose a novel, theoretically-grounded, acquisition function for Batch Bayesian optimization informed by insights from distributionally ambiguous optimization. Our acquisition function is a lower bound on the well-known Expected…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-04-17 Nikitas Rontsis , Michael A. Osborne , Paul J. Goulart

This study investigates an asymptotically minimax optimal algorithm in the two-armed fixed-budget best-arm identification (BAI) problem. Given two treatment arms, the objective is to identify the arm with the highest expected outcome…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-01-23 Masahiro Kato

We study the fixed-confidence best arm identification (BAI) problem within the multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework under the Entropic Value-at-Risk (EVaR) criterion. Our analysis considers a nonparametric setting, allowing for general reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-07 Mehrasa Ahmadipour , Aurélien Garivier

We present an efficient and generalised procedure to accurately identify the best (or near best) performing algorithm for each sub-task in a multi-problem domain. Our approach treats this as a set of best arm identification problems for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-22 Matthew Stephenson , Alex Newcombe , Eric Piette , Dennis Soemers

Bayesian optimization is a class of global optimization techniques. In Bayesian optimization, the underlying objective function is modeled as a realization of a Gaussian process. Although the Gaussian process assumption implies a random…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-05-08 Rui Tuo , Wenjia Wang

We formulate, analyze and solve the problem of best arm identification with fairness constraints on subpopulations (BAICS). Standard best arm identification problems aim at selecting an arm that has the largest expected reward where the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-11 Yuhang Wu , Zeyu Zheng , Tingyu Zhu

We consider optimization of composite objective functions, i.e., of the form $f(x)=g(h(x))$, where $h$ is a black-box derivative-free expensive-to-evaluate function with vector-valued outputs, and $g$ is a cheap-to-evaluate real-valued…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-05 Raul Astudillo , Peter I. Frazier

Two non-intrusive uncertainty propagation approaches are proposed for the performance analysis of engineering systems described by expensive-to-evaluate deterministic computer models with parameters defined as interval variables. These…

Signal Processing · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-02-15 Alice Cicirello , Filippo Giunta

The PC algorithm is a popular method for learning the structure of Gaussian Bayesian networks. It carries out statistical tests to determine absent edges in the network. It is hence governed by two parameters: (i) The type of test, and (ii)…

The Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is one of the most popular methods used to solve the problem of parametric distribution-based clustering in unsupervised learning. In this paper, we propose to analyze a generalized EM (GEM)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-19 Sarthak Chatterjee , Orlando Romero , Sérgio Pequito

It is commonly believed that Bayesian optimization (BO) algorithms are highly efficient for optimizing numerically costly functions. However, BO is not often compared to widely different alternatives, and is mostly tested on narrow sets of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-10-01 Rodolphe Le Riche , Victor Picheny

Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is a widely used iterative algorithm for computing maximum likelihood estimate when dealing with Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). When the sample size is smaller than the data dimension, this could lead…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-07-06 Pierre Houdouin , Matthieu Jonkcheere , Frederic Pascal

This paper addresses the estimation of parameters of a Bayesian network from incomplete data. The task is usually tackled by running the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm several times in order to obtain a high log-likelihood…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Giorgio Corani , Cassio P. De Campos

Bayesian optimization is a sample-efficient approach to global optimization that relies on theoretically motivated value heuristics (acquisition functions) to guide its search process. Fully maximizing acquisition functions produces the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-12-04 James T. Wilson , Frank Hutter , Marc Peter Deisenroth

We introduce Box Thirding (B3), a flexible and efficient algorithm for Best Arm Identification (BAI) under fixed-budget constraints. It is designed for both anytime BAI and scenarios with large N, where the number of arms is too large for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-23 Seohwa Hwang , Junyong Park

In the Best-$K$ identification problem (Best-$K$-Arm), we are given $N$ stochastic bandit arms with unknown reward distributions. Our goal is to identify the $K$ arms with the largest means with high confidence, by drawing samples from the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-05-22 Haotian Jiang , Jian Li , Mingda Qiao

This study investigates minimax and Bayes optimal strategies for fixed-budget best-arm identification. We consider an adaptive procedure consisting of a sampling phase followed by a recommendation phase, and we design an adaptive experiment…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-02-05 Masahiro Kato

The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is an iterative method for finding maximum likelihood estimates when data are incomplete or are treated as being incomplete. The EM algorithm and its variants are commonly used for parameter…

Computation · Statistics 2013-06-26 Ryan P. Browne , Sanjeena Subedi , Paul McNicholas

AI tools increasingly guide targeted interventions in healthcare, education, and recruiting. Algorithms score individuals, trigger outreach to those above a threshold (e.g., high-risk or high-value), and encourage them to request service;…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-04-17 Carri W. Chan , Yi Han , Hannah Li , Benjamin L. Ranard