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The computational costs of inference and planning have confined Bayesian model-based reinforcement learning to one of two dismal fates: powerful Bayes-adaptive planning but only for simplistic models, or powerful, Bayesian non-parametric…
In stochastic bandit problems, a Bayesian policy called Thompson sampling (TS) has recently attracted much attention for its excellent empirical performance. However, the theoretical analysis of this policy is difficult and its asymptotic…
Global strategies to contain a pandemic, such as social distancing and protective measures, are designed to reduce the overall transmission rate between individuals. Despite such measures, essential institutions, including hospitals,…
The aim of the paper is to describe a model of the development of the Covid-19 contamination of the population of a country or a region. For this purpose a special branching process with two types of individuals is considered. This model is…
In this study, we present a new epidemiological model, with contamination from confirmed and unreported. We also compute equilibria and study their stability without intervention strategies. Optimal control theory has proven to be a…
Why are the epidemic patterns of COVID-19 so different among different cities or countries which are similar in their populations, medical infrastructures, and people's behavior? Why are forecasts or predictions made by so-called experts…
Contact tracing has been extensively studied from different perspectives in recent years. However, there is no clear indication of why this intervention has proven effective in some epidemics (SARS) and mostly ineffective in some others…
The cataclysmic contagion based calamity -- Covid-19 has shown us a clear need for a comprehensive community based strategy that overcomes the sheer complexity of controlling it and the caveats of current methods. In this regard, as seen in…
The optimal control of epidemic-like stochastic processes is important both historically and for emerging applications today, where it can be especially important to include time-varying parameters that impact viral epidemic-like…
We aim to efficiently allocate a fixed simulation budget to identify the top-mc designs for each context among a finite number of contexts. The performance of each design under a context is measured by an identifiable statistical…
We argue that frequent sampling of the fraction of infected people (either by random testing or by analysis of sewage water), is central to managing the COVID-19 pandemic because it both measures in real time the key variable controlled by…
Thompson sampling has been shown to be an effective policy across a variety of online learning tasks. Many works have analyzed the finite time performance of Thompson sampling, and proved that it achieves a sub-linear regret under a broad…
Bayesian optimization through Gaussian process regression is an effective method of optimizing an unknown function for which every measurement is expensive. It approximates the objective function and then recommends a new measurement point…
We present a control framework for stochastic compartmental models in epidemiology. In this framework, rather than directly controlling the stochastic system, we perform optimal control of an associated Fokker-Planck equation, with the goal…
We study the use of policy gradient algorithms to optimize over a class of generalized Thompson sampling policies. Our central insight is to view the posterior parameter sampled by Thompson sampling as a kind of pseudo-action. Policy…
An innovative sampling strategy is proposed, which applies to large-scale population-based surveys targeting a rare trait that is unevenly spread over a geographical area of interest. Our proposal is characterised by the ability to tailor…
We propose a monitoring strategy for efficient and robust estimation of disease prevalence and case numbers within closed and enumerated populations such as schools, workplaces, or retirement communities. The proposed design relies largely…
In this paper, we provide insights on how much testing and social distancing is required to control COVID-19. To this end, we develop a compartmental model that accounts for key aspects of the disease: 1) incubation time, 2) age-dependent…
Compartmental models are used in epidemiology to capture the evolution of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 in a population by assigning members of it to compartments with labels such as susceptible, infected, and recovered. In a…
There is a growing interest in modeling and analyzing the spread of diseases like the SARS-CoV-2 infection using stochastic models. These models are typically analyzed quantitatively and are not often subject to validation using formal…