Related papers: X-Armed Bandits: Optimizing Quantiles, CVaR and Ot…
In this paper we consider the contextual multi-armed bandit problem for linear payoffs under a risk-averse criterion. At each round, contexts are revealed for each arm, and the decision maker chooses one arm to pull and receives the…
In this paper we study the non-stationary stochastic optimization question with bandit feedback and dynamic regret measures. The seminal work of Besbes et al. (2015) shows that, when aggregated function changes is known a priori, a simple…
We show how to reduce the problem of computing VaR and CVaR with Student T return distributions to evaluation of analytical functions of the moments. This allows an analysis of the risk properties of systems to be carefully attributed…
Continuum-armed bandits (a.k.a., black-box or $0^{th}$-order optimization) involves optimizing an unknown objective function given an oracle that evaluates the function at a query point, with the goal of using as few query points as…
We study MNL bandits, which is a variant of the traditional multi-armed bandit problem, under risk criteria. Unlike the ordinary expected revenue, risk criteria are more general goals widely used in industries and bussiness. We design…
Stochastic optimization is a widely used approach for optimization under uncertainty, where uncertain input parameters are modeled by random variables. Exact or approximation algorithms have been obtained for several fundamental problems in…
We consider the problem of minimizing the regret in stochastic multi-armed bandit, when the measure of goodness of an arm is not the mean return, but some general function of the mean and the variance.We characterize the conditions under…
Time-constrained decision processes have been ubiquitous in many fundamental applications in physics, biology and computer science. Recently, restart strategies have gained significant attention for boosting the efficiency of…
Machine learning algorithms are often repeatedly applied to problems with similar structure over and over again. We focus on solving a sequence of bandit optimization tasks and develop LIBO, an algorithm which adapts to the environment by…
Stochastic linear bandits are a natural and simple generalisation of finite-armed bandits with numerous practical applications. Current approaches focus on generalising existing techniques for finite-armed bandits, notably the optimism…
This thesis studies the exploration and exploitation trade-off in online learning of properties of quantum states using multi-armed bandits. Given streaming access to an unknown quantum state, in each round we select an observable from a…
In this paper, we develop a stochastic set-valued optimization (SVO) framework tailored for robust machine learning. In the SVO setting, each decision variable is mapped to a set of objective values, and optimality is defined via set…
We introduce a new stochastic smoothing perspective to study adversarial contextual bandit problems. We propose a general algorithm template that represents random perturbation based algorithms and identify several perturbation…
This paper studies a bandit optimization problem where the goal is to maximize a function $f(x)$ over $T$ periods for some unknown strongly concave function $f$. We consider a new pairwise comparison oracle, where the decision-maker chooses…
Quantum Random Access Optimizer (QRAO) is a quantum-relaxation based optimization algorithm proposed by Fuller et al. that utilizes Quantum Random Access Code (QRAC) to encode multiple variables of binary optimization in a single qubit. The…
In this paper, we study sequential decision-making for maximizing the Sharpe ratio (SR) in a stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) setting. Unlike standard bandit formulations that maximize cumulative reward, SR optimization requires…
Solving hard optimization problems is one of the most promising application domains for quantum computers due to the ubiquity of such problems in industry and the availability of broadly applicable quantum speedups. However, the ability of…
The concepts of risk-aversion, chance-constrained optimization, and robust optimization have developed significantly over the last decade. Statistical learning community has also witnessed a rapid theoretical and applied growth by relying…
Quantile is a popular performance measure for a stochastic system to evaluate its variability and risk. To reduce the risk, selecting the actions that minimize the tail quantiles of some loss distributions is typically of interest for…
Spectral risk objectives - also called $L$-risks - allow for learning systems to interpolate between optimizing average-case performance (as in empirical risk minimization) and worst-case performance on a task. We develop stochastic…