No Arabic abstract
We consider the bandit problem of selecting $K$ out of $N$ arms at each time step. The reward can be a non-linear function of the rewards of the selected individual arms. The direct use of a multi-armed bandit algorithm requires choosing among $binom{N}{K}$ options, making the action space large. To simplify the problem, existing works on combinatorial bandits {typically} assume feedback as a linear function of individual rewards. In this paper, we prove the lower bound for top-$K$ subset selection with bandit feedback with possibly correlated rewards. We present a novel algorithm for the combinatorial setting without using individual arm feedback or requiring linearity of the reward function. Additionally, our algorithm works on correlated rewards of individual arms. Our algorithm, aDaptive Accept RejecT (DART), sequentially finds good arms and eliminates bad arms based on confidence bounds. DART is computationally efficient and uses storage linear in $N$. Further, DART achieves a regret bound of $tilde{mathcal{O}}(Ksqrt{KNT})$ for a time horizon $T$, which matches the lower bound in bandit feedback up to a factor of $sqrt{log{2NT}}$. When applied to the problem of cross-selling optimization and maximizing the mean of individual rewards, the performance of the proposed algorithm surpasses that of state-of-the-art algorithms. We also show that DART significantly outperforms existing methods for both linear and non-linear joint reward environments.
Sparse neural networks are becoming increasingly important as the field seeks to improve the performance of existing models by scaling them up, while simultaneously trying to reduce power consumption and computational footprint. Unfortunately, most existing methods for inducing performant sparse models still entail the instantiation of dense parameters, or dense gradients in the backward-pass, during training. For very large models this requirement can be prohibitive. In this work we propose Top-KAST, a method that preserves constant sparsity throughout training (in both the forward and backward-passes). We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by showing that it performs comparably to or better than previous works when training models on the established ImageNet benchmark, whilst fully maintaining sparsity. In addition to our ImageNet results, we also demonstrate our approach in the domain of language modeling where the current best performing architectures tend to have tens of billions of parameters and scaling up does not yet seem to have saturated performance. Spar
In the classical Subset Sum problem we are given a set $X$ and a target $t$, and the task is to decide whether there exists a subset of $X$ which sums to $t$. A recent line of research has resulted in $tilde{O}(t)$-time algorithms, which are (near-)optimal under popular complexity-theoretic assumptions. On the other hand, the standard dynamic programming algorithm runs in time $O(n cdot |mathcal{S}(X,t)|)$, where $mathcal{S}(X,t)$ is the set of all subset sums of $X$ that are smaller than $t$. Furthermore, all known pseudopolynomial algorithms actually solve a stronger task, since they actually compute the whole set $mathcal{S}(X,t)$. As the aforementioned two running times are incomparable, in this paper we ask whether one can achieve the best of both worlds: running time $tilde{O}(|mathcal{S}(X,t)|)$. In particular, we ask whether $mathcal{S}(X,t)$ can be computed in near-linear time in the output-size. Using a diverse toolkit containing techniques such as color coding, sparse recovery, and sumset estimates, we make considerable progress towards this question and design an algorithm running in time $tilde{O}(|mathcal{S}(X,t)|^{4/3})$. Central to our approach is the study of top-$k$-convolution, a natural problem of independent interest: given sparse polynomials with non-negative coefficients, compute the lowest $k$ non-zero monomials of their product. We design an algorithm running in time $tilde{O}(k^{4/3})$, by a combination of sparse convolution and sumset estimates considered in Additive Combinatorics. Moreover, we provide evidence that going beyond some of the barriers we have faced requires either an algorithmic breakthrough or possibly new techniques from Additive Combinatorics on how to pass from information on restricted sumsets to information on unrestricted sumsets.
The top-k operation, i.e., finding the k largest or smallest elements from a collection of scores, is an important model component, which is widely used in information retrieval, machine learning, and data mining. However, if the top-k operation is implemented in an algorithmic way, e.g., using bubble algorithm, the resulting model cannot be trained in an end-to-end way using prevalent gradient descent algorithms. This is because these implementations typically involve swapping indices, whose gradient cannot be computed. Moreover, the corresponding mapping from the input scores to the indicator vector of whether this element belongs to the top-k set is essentially discontinuous. To address the issue, we propose a smoothed approximation, namely the SOFT (Scalable Optimal transport-based diFferenTiable) top-k operator. Specifically, our SOFT top-k operator approximates the output of the top-k operation as the solution of an Entropic Optimal Transport (EOT) problem. The gradient of the SOFT operator can then be efficiently approximated based on the optimality conditions of EOT problem. We apply the proposed operator to the k-nearest neighbors and beam search algorithms, and demonstrate improved performance.
Active learning is an important technique to reduce the number of labeled examples in supervised learning. Active learning for binary classification has been well addressed in machine learning. However, active learning of the reject option classifier remains unaddressed. In this paper, we propose novel algorithms for active learning of reject option classifiers. We develop an active learning algorithm using double ramp loss function. We provide mistake bounds for this algorithm. We also propose a new loss function called double sigmoid loss function for reject option and corresponding active learning algorithm. We offer a convergence guarantee for this algorithm. We provide extensive experimental results to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. The proposed algorithms efficiently reduce the number of label examples required.
In this paper, we propose an approach for learning sparse reject option classifiers using double ramp loss $L_{dr}$. We use DC programming to find the risk minimizer. The algorithm solves a sequence of linear programs to learn the reject option classifier. We show that the loss $L_{dr}$ is Fisher consistent. We also show that the excess risk of loss $L_d$ is upper bounded by the excess risk of $L_{dr}$. We derive the generalization error bounds for the proposed approach. We show the effectiveness of the proposed approach by experimenting it on several real world datasets. The proposed approach not only performs comparable to the state of the art but it also successfully learns sparse classifiers.