Related papers: Approximate Function Evaluation via Multi-Armed Ba…
Active learning methods have shown great promise in reducing the number of samples necessary for learning. As automated learning systems are adopted into real-time, real-world decision-making pipelines, it is increasingly important that…
Sequential testing problems involve a complex system with several components, each of which is "working" with some independent probability. The outcome of each component can be determined by performing a test, which incurs some cost. The…
Stochastic delays in feedback lead to unstable sequential learning using multi-armed bandits. Recently, empirical Bayesian shrinkage has been shown to improve reward estimation in bandit learning. Here, we propose a novel adaptation to…
Given data drawn from a collection of Gaussian variables with a common mean but different and unknown variances, what is the best algorithm for estimating their common mean? We present an intuitive and efficient algorithm for this task. As…
Consider an unknown smooth function $f: [0,1]^d \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$, and say we are given $n$ noisy mod 1 samples of $f$, i.e., $y_i = (f(x_i) + \eta_i)\mod 1$, for $x_i \in [0,1]^d$, where $\eta_i$ denotes the noise. Given the samples…
Some classical uncertainty quantification problems require the estimation of multiple expectations. Estimating all of them accurately is crucial and can have a major impact on the analysis to perform, and standard existing Monte Carlo…
A key problem in approximation theory is the recovery of high-dimensional functions from samples. In many cases, the functions of interest exhibit anisotropic smoothness, and, in many practical settings, the nature of this anisotropy may be…
We consider the regression problem of estimating functions on $\mathbb{R}^D$ but supported on a $d$-dimensional manifold $ \mathcal{M} \subset \mathbb{R}^D $ with $ d \ll D $. Drawing ideas from multi-resolution analysis and nonlinear…
Given noisy data, function estimation is considered when the unknown function is known a priori to consist of a small number of regions where the function is either convex or concave. When the number of regions is unknown, the model…
We consider the model of nonregular nonparametric regression where smoothness constraints are imposed on the regression function $f$ and the regression errors are assumed to decay with some sharpness level at their endpoints. The aim of…
Let $\mathbf{x}_j = \mathbf{\theta} + \mathbf{\epsilon}_j$, $j=1,\dots,n$ be i.i.d. copies of a Gaussian random vector $\mathbf{x}\sim\mathcal{N}(\mathbf{\theta},\mathbf{\Sigma})$ with unknown mean $\mathbf{\theta} \in \mathbb{R}^d$ and…
We study sampling problems associated with potentials that lack smoothness. The potentials can be either convex or non-convex. Departing from the standard smooth setting, the potentials are only assumed to be weakly smooth or non-smooth, or…
In the Best-$k$-Arm problem, we are given $n$ stochastic bandit arms, each associated with an unknown reward distribution. We are required to identify the $k$ arms with the largest means by taking as few samples as possible. In this paper,…
Motivated by a wide variety of applications, ranging from stochastic optimization to dimension reduction through variable selection, the problem of estimating gradients accurately is of crucial importance in statistics and learning theory.…
We consider a variant of the best arm identification task in stochastic multi-armed bandits. Motivated by risk-averse decision-making problems, our goal is to identify a set of $m$ arms with the highest $\tau$-quantile values within a fixed…
Given a loss function $F:\mathcal{X} \rightarrow \R^+$ that can be written as the sum of losses over a large set of inputs $a_1,\ldots, a_n$, it is often desirable to approximate $F$ by subsampling the input points. Strong theoretical…
In this paper we consider regression problems subject to arbitrary noise in the operator or design matrix. This characterization appropriately models many physical phenomena with uncertainty in the regressors. Although the problem has been…
A linear Gaussian state-space smoothing algorithm is presented for estimation of derivatives from a sequence of noisy measurements. The algorithm uses numerically stable square-root formulas, can handle simultaneous independent measurements…
We study the problem of best-arm identification with fixed confidence in stochastic linear bandits. The objective is to identify the best arm with a given level of certainty while minimizing the sampling budget. We devise a simple algorithm…
A function $f: \mathbb{R}^d \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a Sparse Additive Model (SPAM), if it is of the form $f(\mathbf{x}) = \sum_{l \in \mathcal{S}}\phi_{l}(x_l)$ where $\mathcal{S} \subset [d]$, $|\mathcal{S}| \ll d$. Assuming $\phi$'s,…