Related papers: Many Needles in a Haystack: Active Hit Discovery f…
While in general trading off exploration and exploitation in reinforcement learning is hard, under some formulations relatively simple solutions exist. In this paper, we first derive upper bounds for the utility of selecting different…
In this paper, we study the problem of multiple change-point detection for a univariate sequence under the epidemic setting, where the behavior of the sequence alternates between a common normal state and different epidemic states. This is…
Matching mechanisms play a central role in operations management across diverse fields including education, healthcare, and online platforms. However, experimentally comparing a new matching algorithm against a status quo presents some…
Cross-domain selection hyper-heuristics aim to distill decades of research on problem-specific heuristic search algorithms into adaptable general-purpose search strategies. In this respect, existing selection hyper-heuristics primarily…
Suppose an online platform wants to compare a treatment and control policy, e.g., two different matching algorithms in a ridesharing system, or two different inventory management algorithms in an online retail site. Standard randomized…
Many machine learning strategies designed to automate mathematical tasks leverage neural networks to search large combinatorial spaces of mathematical symbols. In contrast to traditional evolutionary approaches, using a neural network at…
Selective prediction aims to learn a reliable model that abstains from making predictions when uncertain. These predictions can then be deferred to humans for further evaluation. As an everlasting challenge for machine learning, in many…
Change point estimation is often formulated as a search for the maximum of a gain function describing improved fits when segmenting the data. Searching through all candidates requires $O(n)$ evaluations of the gain function for an interval…
Robust causal discovery from observational data under imperfect prior knowledge remains a significant and largely unresolved challenge. Existing methods typically presuppose perfect priors or can only handle specific, pre-identified error…
Active search is a setting in adaptive experimental design where we aim to uncover members of rare, valuable class(es) subject to a budget constraint. An important consideration in this problem is diversity among the discovered targets --…
The problem of how to genetically modify cells in order to maximize a certain cellular phenotype has taken center stage in drug development over the last few years (with, for example, genetically edited CAR-T, CAR-NK, and CAR-NKT cells…
In this paper we introduce a binary search algorithm that efficiently finds initial maximum likelihood estimates for sequential experiments where a binary response is modeled by a continuous factor. The problem is motivated by switching…
This paper investigates the optimal signal detection problem with a particular interest in large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The problem is NP-hard and can be solved optimally by searching the shortest path on the…
We propose new, optimal methods for analyzing randomized trials, when it is suspected that treatment effects may differ in two predefined subpopulations. Such sub-populations could be defined by a biomarker or risk factor measured at…
We develop a new computational approach for "focused" optimal Bayesian experimental design with nonlinear models, with the goal of maximizing expected information gain in targeted subsets of model parameters. Our approach considers…
Bayesian optimization offers the possibility of optimizing black-box operations not accessible through traditional techniques. The success of Bayesian optimization methods such as Expected Improvement (EI) are significantly affected by the…
We consider an agent on a fixed but arbitrary node of a known threshold network, with the task of detecting an unknown missing link/node. We obtain analytic formulas for the probability of success, when the agent's tool is the free…
In the high dimensional regression analysis when the number of predictors is much larger than the sample size, an important question is to select the important variable which are relevant to the response variable of interest. Variable…
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand on efficient algorithms for large scale change point detection problems. To this end, we propose seeded binary segmentation, an approach relying on a deterministic construction of…
Many interventions, such as vaccines in clinical trials or coupons in online marketplaces, must be assigned sequentially without full knowledge of their effects. Multi-armed bandit algorithms have proven successful in such settings.…