Related papers: Approximating Opaque Top-k Queries
Bandit problems with linear or concave reward have been extensively studied, but relatively few works have studied bandits with non-concave reward. This work considers a large family of bandit problems where the unknown underlying reward…
We consider a stochastic bandit problem with a possibly infinite number of arms. We write $p^*$ for the proportion of optimal arms and $\Delta$ for the minimal mean-gap between optimal and sub-optimal arms. We characterize the optimal…
In this paper, we study the standard formulation of an optimization problem when the computation of gradient is not available. Such a problem can be classified as a "black box" optimization problem, since the oracle returns only the value…
The success of deep learning hinges on enormous data and large models, which require labor-intensive annotations and heavy computation costs. Subset selection is a fundamental problem that can play a key role in identifying smaller portions…
We study the kernelized bandit problem, that involves designing an adaptive strategy for querying a noisy zeroth-order-oracle to efficiently learn about the optimizer of an unknown function $f$ with a norm bounded by $M<\infty$ in a…
Metric based comparison operations such as finding maximum, nearest and farthest neighbor are fundamental to studying various clustering techniques such as $k$-center clustering and agglomerative hierarchical clustering. These techniques…
We present a new recommendation setting for picking out two items from a given set to be highlighted to a user, based on contextual input. These two items are presented to a user who chooses one of them, possibly stochastically, with a bias…
Recent work has shown that by approximating the behaviour of a non-differentiable black-box function using a neural network, the black-box can be integrated into a differentiable training pipeline for end-to-end training. This methodology…
We revisit the problem of computing with noisy information considered in Feige et al. 1994, which includes computing the OR function from noisy queries, and computing the MAX, SEARCH and SORT functions from noisy pairwise comparisons. For…
We consider the problem of optimizing a black-box function based on noisy bandit feedback. Kernelized bandit algorithms have shown strong empirical and theoretical performance for this problem. They heavily rely on the assumption that the…
Recent advances in social and mobile technology have enabled an abundance of digital traces (in the form of mobile check-ins, association of mobile devices to specific WiFi hotspots, etc.) revealing the physical presence history of diverse…
In this paper, we explore provable acceleration of diffusion models without any additional retraining. Focusing on the task of approximating a target data distribution in $\mathbb{R}^d$ to within $\varepsilon$ total-variation distance, we…
This paper develops an efficient algorithm for computing the Euclidean projection onto the top-k-sum constraint, a key operation in financial risk management and matrix optimization problems. Existing projection methods rely on sorting and…
We study efficient algorithms for the Euclidean $k$-Center problem, focusing on the regime of large $k$. We take the approach of data reduction by considering $\alpha$-coreset, which is a small subset $S$ of the dataset $P$ such that any…
The clustering problem, in its many variants, has numerous applications in operations research and computer science (e.g., in applications in bioinformatics, image processing, social network analysis, etc.). As sizes of data sets have grown…
We investigate the convergence properties of a class of iterative algorithms designed to minimize a potentially non-smooth and noisy objective function, which may be algebraically intractable and whose values may be obtained as the output…
The causal bandit problem seeks to identify, through sequential experimentation, an intervention that maximizes the expected reward in a causal system modeled by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Existing methods typically assume that the…
Bandit algorithms for online learning to rank (OLTR) problems often aim to maximize long-term revenue by utilizing user feedback. From a practical point of view, however, such algorithms have a high risk of hurting user experience due to…
We provide a simple method to combine stochastic bandit algorithms. Our approach is based on a "meta-UCB" procedure that treats each of $N$ individual bandit algorithms as arms in a higher-level $N$-armed bandit problem that we solve with a…
The state of the art in approximation algorithms for facility location problems are complicated combinations of various techniques. In particular, the currently best 1.488-approximation algorithm for the uncapacitated facility location…