scholarly journals On Gap-Based Lower Bounding Techniques for Best-Arm Identification

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 788
Author(s):  
Lan V. Truong ◽  
Jonathan Scarlett

In this paper, we consider techniques for establishing lower bounds on the number of arm pulls for best-arm identification in the multi-armed bandit problem. While a recent divergence-based approach was shown to provide improvements over an older gap-based approach, we show that the latter can be refined to match the former (up to constant factors) in many cases of interest under Bernoulli rewards, including the case that the rewards are bounded away from zero and one. Together with existing upper bounds, this indicates that the divergence-based and gap-based approaches are both effective for establishing sample complexity lower bounds for best-arm identification.

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-161
Author(s):  
Florian Bourgey ◽  
Stefano De Marco ◽  
Emmanuel Gobet ◽  
Alexandre Zhou

AbstractThe multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method developed by M. B. Giles [Multilevel Monte Carlo path simulation, Oper. Res. 56 2008, 3, 607–617] has a natural application to the evaluation of nested expectations {\mathbb{E}[g(\mathbb{E}[f(X,Y)|X])]}, where {f,g} are functions and {(X,Y)} a couple of independent random variables. Apart from the pricing of American-type derivatives, such computations arise in a large variety of risk valuations (VaR or CVaR of a portfolio, CVA), and in the assessment of margin costs for centrally cleared portfolios. In this work, we focus on the computation of initial margin. We analyze the properties of corresponding MLMC estimators, for which we provide results of asymptotic optimality; at the technical level, we have to deal with limited regularity of the outer function g (which might fail to be everywhere differentiable). Parallel to this, we investigate upper and lower bounds for nested expectations as above, in the spirit of primal-dual algorithms for stochastic control problems.


2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 498-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel C. Miller

We consider an infectious disease spreading along the edges of a network which may have significant clustering. The individuals in the population have heterogeneous infectiousness and/or susceptibility. We define the out-transmissibility of a node to be the marginal probability that it would infect a randomly chosen neighbor given its infectiousness and the distribution of susceptibility. For a given distribution of out-transmissibility, we find the conditions which give the upper (or lower) bounds on the size and probability of an epidemic, under weak assumptions on the transmission properties, but very general assumptions on the network. We find similar bounds for a given distribution of in-transmissibility (the marginal probability of being infected by a neighbor). We also find conditions giving global upper bounds on the size and probability. The distributions leading to these bounds are network independent. In the special case of networks with high girth (locally tree-like), we are able to prove stronger results. In general, the probability and size of epidemics are maximal when the population is homogeneous and minimal when the variance of in- or out-transmissibility is maximal.


Author(s):  
Indranil Biswas ◽  
Ajneet Dhillon ◽  
Nicole Lemire

AbstractWe find upper bounds on the essential dimension of the moduli stack of parabolic vector bundles over a curve. When there is no parabolic structure, we improve the known upper bound on the essential dimension of the usual moduli stack. Our calculations also give lower bounds on the essential dimension of the semistable locus inside the moduli stack of vector bundles of rank r and degree d without parabolic structure.


Author(s):  
A. R. Balasubramanian ◽  
Javier Esparza ◽  
Mikhail Raskin

AbstractIn rendez-vous protocols an arbitrarily large number of indistinguishable finite-state agents interact in pairs. The cut-off problem asks if there exists a number B such that all initial configurations of the protocol with at least B agents in a given initial state can reach a final configuration with all agents in a given final state. In a recent paper [17], Horn and Sangnier prove that the cut-off problem is equivalent to the Petri net reachability problem for protocols with a leader, and in "Image missing" for leaderless protocols. Further, for the special class of symmetric protocols they reduce these bounds to "Image missing" and "Image missing" , respectively. The problem of lowering these upper bounds or finding matching lower bounds is left open. We show that the cut-off problem is "Image missing" -complete for leaderless protocols, "Image missing" -complete for symmetric protocols with a leader, and in "Image missing" for leaderless symmetric protocols, thereby solving all the problems left open in [17].


2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (8) ◽  
pp. 537-540
Author(s):  
Shiteng Chen ◽  
Periklis A. Papakonstantinou
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