A new method estimates uncertainty without explicit prediction models.
problem Costly data acquisition in machine learning.
method Distance-weighted Class Impurity method for uncertainty estimation.
result Distance-weighted Class Impurity effectively estimates uncertainty without prediction models.
In most real-world settings such as recommender systems, finance, and healthcare, collecting useful information is costly and requires an active choice on the part of the decision maker. The decision-maker needs to learn simultaneously what observations to make and what actions to take. This paper incorporates the info…
Evidence acquisition costs influence disclosure behavior and preference.
problem How evidence acquisition costs affect disclosure behavior and preference.
method Analyzes sender-receiver interactions with covert and overt evidence acquisition, varying certification costs.
result Equilibria converge to the Pareto-worst free-learning equilibrium as costs vanish, and receivers prefer covert to overt acquisition.
Proposes efficient data acquisition for personalized treatment effects from observational data.
problem Efficiently acquiring outcomes for personalized treatment effects in observational studies.
method Introduces causal, Bayesian acquisition functions to select points with overlapping support.
result Demonstrates improved sample efficiency and accuracy in learning personalized treatment effects.
Meta-learning improves model performance by optimizing data acquisition.
problem Lack of operationally realistic data limits model performance.
method Gaussian process surrogate fit to metadata-driven training data variations.
result Meta-learning enhances model performance compared to random data acquisition.
Study improves feature acquisition for static settings in AFAPE.
problem Evaluate AFAPE performance in static feature settings.
method Derive and adapt IPW, DM, and DRL estimators for MAR and MNAR missingness.
result Improved data efficiency in synthetic and real-world experiments.
Active learning selects samples for labeling to build accurate models with minimal labeled data.
problem Costly acquisition of labeled data in supervised learning.
method Adaptive selection of unlabeled data samples for labeling.
result Efficient model building with minimal labeled data.
New methods prioritize acquiring confounding features for efficient treatment effect estimation.
problem Efficient treatment effect estimation from observational data with missing confounding information.
method Proposes two acquisition strategies: covariate balancing and reducing factual outcome error.
result Our proposed methods, especially reducing factual outcome error, improve sample efficiency for treatment effect estimation.
Study on optimal information acquisition in Kyle model with entropy cost.
problem Optimal information acquisition in Kyle model with entropy cost.
method Continuous signals are optimal, and any signal with a logit posterior distribution yields the same ex-ante value.
result Posterior expected payoff becomes normally distributed as information acquisition cost increases.
BOOST automates kernel and acquisition function selection in Bayesian optimization.
problem Inappropriate kernel and acquisition function combinations lead to poor performance in Bayesian optimization.
method BOOST uses offline evaluation to predict and select the best kernel-acquisition function pair.
result BOOST consistently improves over fixed-hyperparameter BO and is competitive with state-of-the-art adaptive methods.
NM-PPG optimizes adaptive feature acquisition in POMDPs for better predictions.
problem Optimizing adaptive feature acquisition in prediction problems with costly features.
method Non-myopic pathwise policy gradients (NM-PPG) with continuous relaxation and straight-through rollout.
result NM-PPG outperforms state-of-the-art AFA methods on synthetic and real-world datasets.
We introduce a novel apprenticeship learning algorithm to learn an expert's underlying reward structure in off-policy model-free \emph{batch} settings. Unlike existing methods that require a dynamics model or additional data acquisition for on-policy evaluation, our algorithm requires only the batch data of observed ex…
Simplifies decision-making during medical exams with cost-efficient feature acquisition.
problem Guiding physicians during examination acquisition for accurate and efficient diagnosis.
method Dropout at input layer and integrated gradients at test-time for dynamic feature importance.
result More cost- and feature-efficient than prior approaches, achieving higher overall accuracy.
Active learning selects both observations and annotation precision for Gaussian Processes.
problem Costly annotation in supervised learning.
method Proposes an active learning algorithm that selects observations and annotation precision, using a modified BALD objective.
result Empirically shows the benefits of adjusting annotation precision in active learning.
Bayesian optimization is a powerful global optimization technique for expensive black-box functions. One of its shortcomings is that it requires auxiliary optimization of an acquisition function at each iteration. This auxiliary optimization can be costly and very hard to carry out in practice. Moreover, it creates ser…
New method optimizes costly functions with unknown costs and budget constraints.
problem Optimizing functions with unknown and heterogeneous evaluation costs under a budget constraint.
method Budgeted multi-step expected improvement acquisition function.
result Our method outperforms existing approaches in various synthetic and real problems.
Parallelizes active learning for Bayesian inference using Nested Sampler.
problem Expensive likelihood evaluations in complex experiments.
method Uses Nested Sampler to generate nearly-optimal batches of candidates in parallel.
result Comparable accuracy to sequential conditioning with efficient parallelization.
The optimization of expensive-to-evaluate black-box functions over combinatorial structures is an ubiquitous task in machine learning, engineering and the natural sciences. The combinatorial explosion of the search space and costly evaluations pose challenges for current techniques in discrete optimization and machine …
As a new classification platform, deep learning has recently received increasing attention from researchers and has been successfully applied to many domains. In some domains, like bioinformatics and robotics, it is very difficult to construct a large-scale well-annotated dataset due to the expense of data acquisition …
DARTS optimizes covariate selection in trials with limited data.
problem Limited budget for high-dimensional pretreatment data.
method Dynamic Adaptive Rerandomization via Thompson Sampling (DARTS).
result DARTS efficiently concentrates budget on informative features.
Many real-life decision-making situations allow further relevant information to be acquired at a specific cost, for example, in assessing the health status of a patient we may decide to take additional measurements such as diagnostic tests or imaging scans before making a final assessment. Acquiring more relevant infor…
Active learning optimizes correlation clustering by querying the most informative pairwise comparisons.
problem Efficiently clustering data with limited pairwise similarity information.
method Developed principled active learning approach using information-theoretic acquisition functions.
result Significantly outperforms existing baselines in clustering accuracy and query efficiency.
This paper introduces a more efficient method for estimating level sets with a stopping criterion.
problem Efficiently estimating regions where a function exceeds a threshold without exhaustive evaluations.
method Acquisition strategy with a stopping criterion for ε ε ε -accurate level set estimation. result The method satisfies ε ε ε -accuracy with a confidence level of 1 − δ 1 - δ 1 − δ and guarantees on lower bounds of performance metrics. Paper develops a method to create accurate emulators of expensive computer codes.
problem High cost and complexity of running complex computer codes.
method Active learning with Gaussian processes to construct emulators.
result Accurate and compact emulators created for expensive codes.
Securely evaluates the benefits of merging datasets for causal estimation.
problem Challenges in assessing the value of merging datasets for causal treatment effect estimation.
method Cryptographically secure multi-party computation to evaluate Expected Information Gain (EIG) while ensuring privacy.
result Demonstrates the first privacy-preserving method for dataset acquisition tailored to causal estimation.
Model captures decision-making under bounded rationality with prior beliefs and market feedback.
problem Bounded rationality in decision-making with limited processing abilities.
method Maximum entropy principle applied to Quantal Response Statistical Equilibrium framework.
result Prior beliefs influence decision-making, altering the outcome of market feedback.
A review of statistical SSL methods showing improved classifier performance.
problem Forming classifiers from limited labeled data and many unlabeled data.
method Statistical approaches to semi-supervised learning.
result A classifier from partially labeled data can have lower expected error rate.
In this paper we introduce the ice-start problem, i.e., the challenge of deploying machine learning models when only little or no training data is initially available, and acquiring each feature element of data is associated with costs. This setting is representative for the real-world machine learning applications. Fo…
This paper studies a composite problem involving the decision making of the optimal entry time and dynamic consumption afterwards. In stage-1, the investor has access to full market information subjecting to some information costs and needs to choose an optimal stopping time to initiate stage-2; in stage-2, the investo…
Optimizes data acquisition in high-dimensional Bayesian optimization.
problem Suboptimal data acquisition in high-dimensional Bayesian optimization tasks.
method Utility-calibrated variational inference to align approximations with BO goals.
result Optimal data acquisition decisions under a limited computational budget.
Supervised machine learning methods usually require a large set of labeled examples for model training. However, in many real applications, there are plentiful unlabeled data but limited labeled data; and the acquisition of labels is costly. Active learning (AL) reduces the labeling cost by iteratively selecting the mo…
A2MT learns agents to select which modalities to acquire at test time.
problem Learning agents to select modalities for multimodal temporal data acquisition.
method Perceiver IO architecture for active acquisition of multimodal temporal data.
result Agents successfully learn cost-reactive acquisition behavior on real-world datasets.
We develop BatchBALD, a tractable approximation to the mutual information between a batch of points and model parameters, which we use as an acquisition function to select multiple informative points jointly for the task of deep Bayesian active learning. BatchBALD is a greedy linear-time 1 − 1 e 1 - \frac{1}{e} 1 − e 1 -approximate a…
Acquisition of labeled training samples for affective computing is usually costly and time-consuming, as affects are intrinsically subjective, subtle and uncertain, and hence multiple human assessors are needed to evaluate each affective sample. Particularly, for affect estimation in the 3D space of valence, arousal an…
Algorithm optimizes measurement sequence to minimize data acquisition.
problem Efficiently measure high-dimensional data with minimal measurements.
method Active sequential inference using variational autoencoder (VAE) latent space.
result Optimal measurement sequences chosen to recover high-dimensional data.
Dynamic acquisition of features improves predictions with limited data.
problem Limited or uncertain data requires additional relevant information for accurate assessments.
method Proposes models that dynamically acquire new features using conditional mutual information and arbitrary conditional flow.
result Demonstrates superior performance over baselines in multiple settings.
AFA evaluates AI feature acquisition strategies in domains with high costs.
problem Evaluate AI feature acquisition strategies in domains with high costs.
method Apply missing data methods and offline reinforcement learning under NDE and NUC assumptions.
result Propose a novel semi-offline reinforcement learning framework with three new estimators.
POLAR learns efficient data acquisition policies using pretrained belief representations.
problem Challenges in learning effective policies for adaptive data acquisition.
method POLAR decouples representation learning from policy learning by leveraging pretrained predictive foundation models as belief-state encoders.
result POLAR outperforms state-of-the-art methods across diverse tasks while requiring fewer training samples.
Machine learning automates digitization of historical data.
problem Manual transcription is costly and difficult for large, detailed datasets.
method Apply machine learning techniques for unsupervised layout classification and attention-based neural networks.
result Machine learning can automate the digitization process for historical data.
This study evaluates Bayesian optimization algorithms on a wide range of problems.
problem Assessing the performance of Bayesian optimization algorithms across diverse problems.
method A comprehensive investigation using the COCO benchmark, comparing various design choices.
result Optimizing acquisition criteria and initial budget can significantly improve BO performance.
GOIMDA selects inputs to maximize expected influence on a goal functional, reducing data acquisition needs.
problem Challenges in active data acquisition for learning and optimization tasks in deep neural networks.
method GOIMDA uses inverse curvature and goal gradient to select inputs maximizing expected influence on a specified goal functional.
result GOIMDA achieves target performance with fewer labeled samples or function evaluations compared to baselines.
AE-LSVI identifies near-optimal policies in complex systems with minimal data.
problem Identifying near-optimal policies in complex, costly data acquisition systems.
method Combines optimism and pessimism for active exploration in a generative model setting.
result Proves near-optimal policy identification over entire state spaces with polynomial sample complexity.
A simple method improves batch active learning without high compute.
problem Efficient batch active learning in machine learning.
method Adapting standard single-point acquisition strategies to batch.
result Simple strategy performs as well as advanced batch methods.
New method optimizes Bayesian optimization for high-dimensional posterior samples.
problem Difficult inner-loop optimization of posterior sample paths in Bayesian optimization.
method Global rootfinding approach with carefully selected starting points.
result The method discovers the global optimum most of the time with just one starting point per set.
Improved fault diagnosis for bearings using mRMR and transfer learning.
problem Challenges in forming large-scale annotated datasets for machine fault diagnosis.
method Combining mRMR with deep learning and transfer learning.
result Improved fault diagnostics performance in terms of accuracy and computational complexity.
OLPA optimizes online user-centric selection with probing, achieving near-optimal regret bounds.
problem Sequential decision-making with unknown resources and rewards.
method Probing-augmented user-centric selection (PUCS) framework, greedy probing algorithm, OLPA algorithm.
result OLPA achieves a near-optimal regret bound of O ( T + ln 2 T ) \mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T} + \ln^{2} T) O ( T + ln 2 T ) for online settings. Active inference framework improves U U U -statistic estimation efficiency.
problem Costly acquisition of labels for U U U -statistics. method Active inference framework with optimal sampling rule.
result Substantial gains in estimation efficiency over baseline methods.
The paper develops a method to learn cost-optimal sequential testing policies from retrospective data.
problem Learning cost-optimal sequential decision policies from retrospective data with missing test results.
method Doubly robust Q-learning framework with path-specific inverse probability weights.
result The method reduces testing cost without compromising predictive accuracy.