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We describe $k$-MLE, a fast and efficient local search algorithm for learning finite statistical mixtures of exponential families such as Gaussian mixture models. Mixture models are traditionally learned using the expectation-maximization…
This paper explores the adaptive (active) PAC (probably approximately correct) top-$k$ ranking (i.e., top-$k$ item selection) and total ranking problems from $l$-wise ($l\geq 2$) comparisons under the multinomial logit (MNL) model. By…
In this paper, we study the linear transformation model in the most general setup. This model includes many important and popular models in statistics and econometrics as special cases. Although it has been studied for many years, the…
Since Rendle and Krichene argued that commonly used sampling-based evaluation metrics are "inconsistent" with respect to the global metrics (even in expectation), there have been a few studies on the sampling-based recommender system…
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…
A common problem in machine learning is to rank a set of n items based on pairwise comparisons. Here ranking refers to partitioning the items into sets of pre-specified sizes according to their scores, which includes identification of the…
Several methods of preference modeling, ranking, voting and multi-criteria decision making include pairwise comparisons. It is usually simpler to compare two objects at a time, furthermore, some relations (e.g., the outcome of sports…
In this paper, we propose a listwise approach for constructing user-specific rankings in recommendation systems in a collaborative fashion. We contrast the listwise approach to previous pointwise and pairwise approaches, which are based on…
We consider sequential or active ranking of a set of n items based on noisy pairwise comparisons. Items are ranked according to the probability that a given item beats a randomly chosen item, and ranking refers to partitioning the items…
There are various parametric models for analyzing pairwise comparison data, including the Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) and Thurstone models, but their reliance on strong parametric assumptions is limiting. In this work, we study a flexible…
In a broad range of classification and decision making problems, one is given the advice or predictions of several classifiers, of unknown reliability, over multiple questions or queries. This scenario is different from the standard…
This work considers Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) of a Toeplitz structured covariance matrix. In this regard, an equivalent reformulation of the MLE problem is introduced and two iterative algorithms are proposed for the optimization…
This paper studies human preference learning based on partially revealed choice behavior and formulates the problem as a generalized Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) ranking model that accounts for heterogeneous preferences. Specifically, we assume…
Traditional statistical inference on ordinal comparison data results in an overall ranking of objects, e.g., from best to worst, with each object having a unique rank. However, ranks of some objects may not be statistically distinguishable.…
Motivated by applications in recommender systems, web search, social choice and crowdsourcing, we consider the problem of identifying the set of top $K$ items from noisy pairwise comparisons. In our setting, we are non-actively given $r$…
Rankings are central to decision-making in fields ranging from education to online platforms, yet classical deterministic methods such as the Borda count method or Copeland-type pairwise methods ignore uncertainty due to sampling noise or…
Ranking algorithms are deployed widely to order a set of items in applications such as search engines, news feeds, and recommendation systems. Recent studies, however, have shown that, left unchecked, the output of ranking algorithms can…
Spectral learning recently generated lots of excitement in machine learning, largely because it is the first known method to produce consistent estimates (under suitable conditions) for several latent variable models. In contrast, maximum…
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…
The Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model is a popular statistical approach for estimating the global ranking of a collection of items using pairwise comparisons. To ensure accurate ranking, it is essential to obtain precise estimates of the model…