Related papers: Adaptive Cascade Submodular Maximization
Motivated by modern-day applications such as Attended Home Delivery and Preference-based Group Scheduling, where decision makers wish to steer a large number of customers toward choosing the exact same alternative, we introduce a novel…
Submodular function minimization is well studied, and existing algorithms solve it exactly or up to arbitrary accuracy. However, in many applications, such as structured sparse learning or batch Bayesian optimization, the objective function…
Submodularity is a key property in discrete optimization. Submodularity has been widely used for analyzing the greedy algorithm to give performance bounds and providing insight into the construction of valid inequalities for mixed-integer…
We study the problem of selecting most informative subset of a large observation set to enable accurate estimation of unknown parameters. This problem arises in a variety of settings in machine learning and signal processing including…
In a nutshell, submodular functions encode an intuitive notion of diminishing returns. As a result, submodularity appears in many important machine learning tasks such as feature selection and data summarization. Although there has been a…
Continuous submodular functions are a category of generally non-convex/non-concave functions with a wide spectrum of applications. The celebrated property of this class of functions - continuous submodularity - enables both exact…
Consider the following variant of the set cover problem. We are given a universe $U=\{1,...,n\}$ and a collection of subsets $\mathcal{C} = \{S_1,...,S_m\}$ where $S_i \subseteq U$. For every element $u \in U$ we need to find a set $\phi(u)…
We formulate selecting the best optimizing system (SBOS) problems and provide solutions for those problems. In an SBOS problem, a finite number of systems are contenders. Inside each system, a continuous decision variable affects the…
This article presents a constrained policy optimization approach for the optimal control of systems under nonstationary uncertainties. We introduce an assumption that we call Markov embeddability that allows us to cast the stochastic…
We point out an issue with Theorem 5 appearing in "Group-based active query selection for rapid diagnosis in time-critical situations". Theorem 5 bounds the expected number of queries for a greedy algorithm to identify the class of an item…
We analyze a stochastic approximation algorithm for decision-dependent problems, wherein the data distribution used by the algorithm evolves along the iterate sequence. The primary examples of such problems appear in performative prediction…
In this paper, we investigate a class of submodular problems which in general are very hard. These include minimizing a submodular cost function under combinatorial constraints, which include cuts, matchings, paths, etc., optimizing a…
Hyperparameter selection in continual learning scenarios is a challenging and underexplored aspect, especially in practical non-stationary environments. Traditional approaches, such as grid searches with held-out validation data from all…
We consider the classical problem of sequential resource allocation where a decision maker must repeatedly divide a budget between several resources, each with diminishing returns. This can be recast as a specific stochastic optimization…
Multi-stage stochastic programming is a well-established framework for sequential decision making under uncertainty by seeking policies that are fully adapted to the uncertainty. Often such flexible policies are not desirable, and the…
We consider fairness in submodular maximization subject to a knapsack constraint, a fundamental problem with various applications in economics, machine learning, and data mining. In the model, we are given a set of ground elements, each…
We consider assortment optimization over a continuous spectrum of products represented by the unit interval, where the seller's problem consists of determining the optimal subset of products to offer to potential customers. To describe the…
We develop a framework for obtaining polynomial time approximation schemes (PTAS) for a class of stochastic dynamic programs. Using our framework, we obtain the first PTAS for the following stochastic combinatorial optimization problems:…
Optimal stopping is the problem of deciding when to stop a stochastic system to obtain the greatest reward, arising in numerous application areas such as finance, healthcare and marketing. State-of-the-art methods for high-dimensional…
We study adaptive mesh selection for the solution of systems of initial value problems. The goal is a rigorous theoretical analysis of potential advantages of adaption. For an optimal method in the sense of the speed of convergence, we…