A locally-built, LLM-digested index of recent arXiv papers in quant finance, geometry/topology, and statistical ML — keyword search served straight from SQLite on this machine.
It is well known that in stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB), the sample mean of an arm is typically not an unbiased estimator of its true mean. In this paper, we decouple three different sources of this selection bias: adaptive \emph{sampling} of arms, adaptive \emph{stopping} of the experiment, and adaptively \emph{…
The estimation of advantage is crucial for a number of reinforcement learning algorithms, as it directly influences the choices of future paths. In this work, we propose a family of estimates based on the order statistics over the path ensemble, which allows one to flexibly drive the learning process, towards or agains…
This paper develops a model of reference-dependent assessment of subjective beliefs in which loss-averse people optimally choose the expectation as the reference point to balance the current felicity from the optimistic anticipation and the future disappointment from the realisation. The choice of over-optimism or over…
Information extracted from electrohysterography recordings could potentially prove to be an interesting additional source of information to estimate the risk on preterm birth. Recently, a large number of studies have reported near-perfect results to distinguish between recordings of patients that will deliver term or p…
We discuss the relative merits of optimistic and randomized approaches to exploration in reinforcement learning. Optimistic approaches presented in the literature apply an optimistic boost to the value estimate at each state-action pair and select actions that are greedy with respect to the resulting optimistic value f…
A fundamental problem arising in many areas of machine learning is the evaluation of the likelihood of a given observation under different nominal distributions. Frequently, these nominal distributions are themselves estimated from data, which makes them susceptible to estimation errors. We thus propose to replace each…
We show how to take any two parameter-free online learning algorithms with different regret guarantees and obtain a single algorithm whose regret is the minimum of the two base algorithms. Our method is embarrassingly simple: just add the iterates. This trick can generate efficient algorithms that adapt to many norms s…
Large-scale collections of electronic records constitute both an opportunity for the development of more accurate prediction models and a threat for privacy. To limit privacy exposure new privacy-enhancing techniques are emerging such as federated learning which enables large-scale data analysis while avoiding the cent…
We show that the optimistic limits of the colored Jones polynomials of the hyperbolic knots coincide with the optimistic limits of the Kashaev invariants modulo 4π2.
The optimistic limit is the mathematical formulation of the classical limit which is a physical method to expect the actual limit by using saddle point method of certain potential function. The original optimistic limit of the Kashaev invariant was formulated by Yokota, and a modified formulation was suggested by the a…
New approach for online learning with adaptive adversaries, simpler and more effective.
problem Online learning with adaptive adversaries, especially in bandits and MDPs.
method Uses standard unbiased estimators and a simple increasing learning rate schedule, aided by logarithmically homogeneous self-concordant barriers and strengthened Freedman's inequality.
result First high-probability regret bounds for adversarial bandits and MDPs, resolving open problems.
In the present paper a model of a market consisting of real and financial interacting sectors is studied. Agents populating the stock market are assumed to be not able to observe the true underlying fundamental, and their beliefs are biased by either optimism or pessimism. Depending on the relevance they give to belief…
The Whittle likelihood is a widely used and computationally efficient pseudo-likelihood. However, it is known to produce biased parameter estimates for large classes of models. We propose a method for de-biasing Whittle estimates for second-order stationary stochastic processes. The de-biased Whittle likelihood can be …