Related papers: Concave Statistical Utility Maximization Bandits v…
Variational inequalities play a key role in machine learning research, such as generative adversarial networks, reinforcement learning, adversarial training, and generative models. This paper is devoted to the constrained variational…
We consider the problem of minimizing a convex function that depends on an uncertain parameter $\theta$. The uncertainty in the objective function means that the optimum, $x^*(\theta)$, is also a function of $\theta$. We propose an…
In this work we study optimization problems subject to a failure constraint. This constraint is expressed in terms of a condition that causes failure, representing a physical or technical breakdown. We formulate the problem in terms of a…
Exploration policies in Bayesian bandits maximize the average reward over problem instances drawn from some distribution $\mathcal{P}$. In this work, we learn such policies for an unknown distribution $\mathcal{P}$ using samples from…
We revisit the classical problem of estimating an unknown distribution from its samples by fitting a mixture model that minimizes cross-entropy loss. Framing the task as a stochastic convex optimization problem over the space of $ M…
We consider a combinatorial multi-armed bandit problem for maximum value reward function under maximum value and index feedback. This is a new feedback structure that lies in between commonly studied semi-bandit and full-bandit feedback…
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…
The restless bandit problem is one of the most well-studied generalizations of the celebrated stochastic multi-armed bandit problem in decision theory. In its ultimate generality, the restless bandit problem is known to be PSPACE-Hard to…
This paper considers stochastic linear bandits with general nonlinear constraints. The objective is to maximize the expected cumulative reward over horizon $T$ subject to a set of constraints in each round $\tau\leq T$. We propose a…
A stochastic-gradient-based interior-point algorithm for minimizing a continuously differentiable objective function (that may be nonconvex) subject to bound constraints is presented, analyzed, and demonstrated through experimental results.…
We consider the closely related problems of bandit convex optimization with two-point feedback, and zero-order stochastic convex optimization with two function evaluations per round. We provide a simple algorithm and analysis which is…
In this paper, we investigate the stochastic contextual bandit with general function space and graph feedback. We propose an algorithm that addresses this problem by adapting to both the underlying graph structures and reward gaps. To the…
A stochastic incremental subgradient algorithm for the minimization of a sum of convex functions is introduced. The method sequentially uses partial subgradient information and the sequence of partial subgradients is determined by a general…
Inspired by the recent paper (L. Ying, Mirror descent algorithms for minimizing interacting free energy, Journal of Scientific Computing, 84 (2020), pp. 1-14),we explore the relationship between the mirror descent and the variable metric…
Variational inference is a popular technique to approximate a possibly intractable Bayesian posterior with a more tractable one. Recently, boosting variational inference has been proposed as a new paradigm to approximate the posterior by a…
We study the Improving Multi-Armed Bandit (IMAB) problem, where the reward obtained from an arm increases with the number of pulls it receives. This model provides an elegant abstraction for many real-world problems in domains such as…
In the classic multi-armed bandits problem, the goal is to have a policy for dynamically operating arms that each yield stochastic rewards with unknown means. The key metric of interest is regret, defined as the gap between the expected…
In this paper, we consider the stochastic multi-armed bandits problem with adversarial corruptions, where the random rewards of the arms are partially modified by an adversary to fool the algorithm. We apply the policy gradient algorithm…
We consider a bandit problem where the buget is smaller than the number of arms, which may be infinite. In this regime, the usual objective in the literature is to minimize simple regret. To analyze broad classes of distributions with…
This paper investigates a category of constrained fractional optimization problems that emerge in various practical applications. The objective function for this category is characterized by the ratio of a numerator and denominator, both…