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In this work we provide a theoretical framework for structured prediction that generalizes the existing theory of surrogate methods for binary and multiclass classification based on estimating conditional probabilities with smooth convex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-02-14 Alex Nowak-Vila , Francis Bach , Alessandro Rudi

Convex regression is a method for estimating the convex function from a data set. This method has played an important role in operations research, economics, machine learning, and many other areas. However, it has been empirically observed…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-10-17 Zhiqiang Liao , Sheng Dai , Eunji Lim , Timo Kuosmanen

We study a linear contextual optimization problem where a decision maker has access to historical data and contextual features to learn a cost prediction model aimed at minimizing decision error. We adopt the predict-then-optimize framework…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-09 Omar Bennouna , Jiawei Zhang , Saurabh Amin , Asuman Ozdaglar

Modern machine learning approaches to classification, including AdaBoost, support vector machines, and deep neural networks, utilize surrogate loss techniques to circumvent the computational complexity of minimizing empirical classification…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-07-26 Toru Kitagawa , Shosei Sakaguchi , Aleksey Tetenov

This paper consider penalized empirical loss minimization of convex loss functions with unknown non-linear target functions. Using the elastic net penalty we establish a finite sample oracle inequality which bounds the loss of our estimator…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-12-13 Mehmet Caner , Anders Bredahl Kock

We consider the problem of sequential decision making under uncertainty in which the loss caused by a decision depends on the following binary observation. In competitive on-line learning, the goal is to design decision algorithms that are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Vladimir Vovk

This paper presents a novel learning-based approach to construct a surrogate problem that approximates a given parametric nonconvex optimization problem. The surrogate function is designed to be the minimum of a finite set of functions,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-08 Renzi Wang , Panagiotis Patrinos , Alberto Bemporad

Price determination is a central research topic of revenue management in marketing. The important aspect in pricing is controlling the stochastic behavior of demand, and the previous studies have tackled price optimization problems with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-04 Yuya Hikima , Akiko Takeda

We propose a convex formulation for a trading system with the Conditional Value-at-Risk as a risk-adjusted performance measure under the notion of Direct Reinforcement Learning. Due to convexity, the proposed approach can uncover a…

Trading and Market Microstructure · Quantitative Finance 2021-09-30 Ali Al-Ameer , Khaled Alshehri

Contextual pricing strategies are prevalent in online retailing, where the seller adjusts prices based on products' attributes and buyers' characteristics. Although such strategies can enhance seller's profits, they raise concerns about…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Pangpang Liu , Will Wei Sun

In the context of advertising auctions, finding good reserve prices is a notoriously challenging learning problem. This is due to the heterogeneity of ad opportunity types and the non-convexity of the objective function. In this work, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-07 Andrés Muñoz Medina , Sergei Vassilvitskii

Optimization problems involving minimization of a rank-one convex function over constraints modeling restrictions on the support of the decision variables emerge in various machine learning applications. These problems are often modeled…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-29 Soroosh Shafiee , Fatma Kılınç-Karzan

We consider dynamic pricing with many products under an evolving but low-dimensional demand model. Assuming the temporal variation in cross-elasticities exhibits low-rank structure based on fixed (latent) features of the products, we show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-12 Jonas Mueller , Vasilis Syrgkanis , Matt Taddy

We develop an approach to risk minimization and stochastic optimization that provides a convex surrogate for variance, allowing near-optimal and computationally efficient trading between approximation and estimation error. Our approach…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-12-15 John Duchi , Hongseok Namkoong

Conventional inverse optimization inputs a solution and finds the parameters of an optimization model that render a given solution optimal. The literature mostly focuses on inferring the objective function in linear problems when accepted…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-10-10 Houra Mahmoudzadeh , Kimia Ghobadi

A general framework with a series of different methods is proposed to improve the estimate of convex function (or functional) values when only noisy observations of the true input are available. Technically, our methods catch the bias…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-09-15 Chao Ma , Lexing Ying

In this work, we study how the relevance/quality and quantity of past data influence performance by analyzing a contextual Newsvendor problem, in which a decision-maker trades off between underage and overage costs under uncertain demand.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-13 Omar Besbes , Will Ma , Omar Mouchtaki

We introduce a new online convex optimization algorithm that adaptively chooses its regularization function based on the loss functions observed so far. This is in contrast to previous algorithms that use a fixed regularization function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2010-07-08 H. Brendan McMahan , Matthew Streeter

This study addresses the interpretable estimation of price bounds in the context of price optimization. In recent years, price-optimization methods have become indispensable for maximizing revenue and profits. However, effective application…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-01 Shunnosuke Ikeda , Naoki Nishimura , Shunji Umetani

We study an online contextual dynamic pricing problem, where customers decide whether to purchase a product based on its features and price. We introduce a novel approach to modeling a customer's expected demand by incorporating…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-27 Jianyu Xu , Yu-Xiang Wang