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.
A new algorithm CAP learns optimal policies from observational data with confounding bias and missing observations.
problem Offline contextual bandit with confounding bias and missing observations.
method CAP policy learning, forming reward function as solution of integral equation system, building confidence set, and greedily taking action with pessimism.
result Developed an upper bound to the suboptimality of CAP for the offline contextual bandit problem.
Motivated by online recommendation and advertising systems, we consider a causal model for stochastic contextual bandits with a latent low-dimensional confounder. In our model, there are L observed contexts and K arms of the bandit. The observed context influences the reward obtained through a latent confounder var…
This paper studies semiparametric contextual bandits, a generalization of the linear stochastic bandit problem where the reward for an action is modeled as a linear function of known action features confounded by an non-linear action-independent term. We design new algorithms that achieve O~(dT) regret …
Evaluating novel contextual bandit policies using logged data is crucial in applications where exploration is costly, such as medicine. But it usually relies on the assumption of no unobserved confounders, which is bound to fail in practice. We study the question of policy evaluation when we instead have proxies for th…
Bayesian bandits misspecification affects UX optimization, revealing new models.
problem Misspecification of value models in Bayesian bandits impacts UX optimization.
method Formulated UXO as a restless, sleeping bandit with unobserved confounders and optional stopping. Provided model extensions to address misspecifications.
result Common misspecifications lead to sub-optimal rewards, demonstrating overdispersion's effects on bandit performance.
Applying causal inference models in areas such as economics, healthcare and marketing receives great interest from the machine learning community. In particular, estimating the individual-treatment-effect (ITE) in settings such as precision medicine and targeted advertising has peaked in application. Optimising this IT…
Statistical learning on biological data can be challenging due to confounding variables in sample collection and processing. Confounders can cause models to generalize poorly and result in inaccurate prediction performance metrics if models are not validated thoroughly. In this paper, we propose methods to control for …
Causal inference from observational data requires assumptions. These assumptions range from measuring confounders to identifying instruments. Traditionally, causal inference assumptions have focused on estimation of effects for a single treatment. In this work, we construct techniques for estimation with multiple treat…
Causal discovery from data affected by latent confounders is an important and difficult challenge. Causal functional model-based approaches have not been used to present variables whose relationships are affected by latent confounders, while some constraint-based methods can present them. This paper proposes a causal f…
Estimating the individual treatment effect (ITE) from observational data is essential in medicine. A central challenge in estimating the ITE is handling confounders, which are factors that affect both an intervention and its outcome. Most previous work relies on the unconfoundedness assumption, which posits that all th…
Valid causal inference with unobserved confounding in high-dimensional settings.
problem Estimating causal effects with unobserved confounders in high-dimensional data.
method Proposes methods to estimate causal effects with valid confidence intervals in the presence of unobserved confounders and high-dimensional nuisance models.
result Valid semiparametric inference can be obtained with unobserved confounding, and uncertainty intervals are proposed.
problem Machine learning models can be misled by hidden confounders, leading to unreliable predictions.
method Develops a nonlinear spectral deconfounding framework for gradient boosting that modifies boosting dynamics to slow down in confounding-aligned directions.
result Spectrally deconfounded boosting improves estimation of the target function under hidden confounding and is more scalable.
We propose a method for inferring the existence of a latent common cause ('confounder') of two observed random variables. The method assumes that the two effects of the confounder are (possibly nonlinear) functions of the confounder plus independent, additive noise. We discuss under which conditions the model is identi…
Paper tackles backwards-compatible data adaptation for confounded covariate and label shifts.
problem Adapt covariates to predict labels confounded with covariate shifts.
method Proposes confounded shift framework based on minimizing divergence between source and target conditional distributions, conditioning on confounders.
result Demonstrates approach on synthetic and real datasets, achieving backwards-compatible data adaptation.
In this paper, we study the confounder detection problem in the linear model, where the target variable Y is predicted using its n potential causes Xn=(x1,...,xn)T. Based on an assumption of rotation invariant generating process of the model, recent study shows that the spectral measure induced by the regress…