Related papers: Improving the Expected Improvement Algorithm

We propose a new strategy for best-arm identification with fixed confidence of Gaussian variables with bounded means and unit variance. This strategy, called Exploration-Biased Sampling, is not only asymptotically optimal: it is to the best…

We consider Bayesian optimization of an expensive-to-evaluate black-box objective function, where we also have access to cheaper approximations of the objective. In general, such approximations arise in applications such as reinforcement…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms are increasingly providing decision making and operational support across multiple domains. AI includes a wide library of algorithms for different problems. One important notion for the adoption of AI…

Many contemporary machine learning models require extensive tuning of hyperparameters to perform well. A variety of methods, such as Bayesian optimization, have been developed to automate and expedite this process. However, tuning remains…

Expectation Maximization (EM) is among the most popular algorithms for maximum likelihood estimation, but it is generally only guaranteed to find its stationary points of the log-likelihood objective. The goal of this article is to present…

This paper investigates the problem of best arm identification in $\textit{contaminated}$ stochastic multi-arm bandits. In this setting, the rewards obtained from any arm are replaced by samples from an adversarial model with probability…

Batch policy optimization considers leveraging existing data for policy construction before interacting with an environment. Although interest in this problem has grown significantly in recent years, its theoretical foundations remain…

We consider Bayesian optimization of the output of a network of functions, where each function takes as input the output of its parent nodes, and where the network takes significant time to evaluate. Such problems arise, for example, in…

Surrogate-based optimization relies on so-called infill criteria (acquisition functions) to decide which point to evaluate next. When Kriging is used as the surrogate model of choice (also called Bayesian optimization), one of the most…

Many real-world optimization problems involve uncertain parameters with probability distributions that can be estimated using contextual feature information. In contrast to the standard approach of first estimating the distribution of…

Bayesian optimal experimental design has immense potential to inform the collection of data so as to subsequently enhance our understanding of a variety of processes. However, a major impediment is the difficulty in evaluating optimal…

Accurate uncertainty estimates are important in sequential model-based decision-making tasks such as Bayesian optimization. However, these estimates can be imperfect if the data violates assumptions made by the model (e.g., Gaussianity).…

Optimization is becoming increasingly common in scientific and engineering domains. Oftentimes, these problems involve various levels of stochasticity or uncertainty in generating proposed solutions. Therefore, optimization in these…

Hyperparameter tuning is a challenging problem especially when the system itself involves uncertainty. Due to noisy function evaluations, optimization under uncertainty can be computationally expensive. In this paper, we present a novel…

Bayesian optimisation (BO) uses probabilistic surrogate models - usually Gaussian processes (GPs) - for the optimisation of expensive black-box functions. At each BO iteration, the GP hyperparameters are fit to previously-evaluated data by…

Many expensive black-box optimisation problems are sensitive to their inputs. In these problems it makes more sense to locate a region of good designs, than a single-possibly fragile-optimal design. Expensive black-box functions can be…

Hyperparameter tuning is a common technique for improving the performance of neural networks. Most techniques for hyperparameter search involve an iterated process where the model is retrained at every iteration. However, the expected…

Many real-world optimisation problems such as hyperparameter tuning in machine learning or simulation-based optimisation can be formulated as expensive-to-evaluate black-box functions. A popular approach to tackle such problems is Bayesian…

We propose an approach based on function evaluations and Bayesian inference to extract higher-order differential information of objective functions {from a given ensemble of particles}. Pointwise evaluation $\{V(x^i)\}_i$ of some potential…

Learning-augmented algorithms -- in which, traditional algorithms are augmented with machine-learned predictions -- have emerged as a framework to go beyond worst-case analysis. The overarching goal is to design algorithms that perform…