We frame OPE as a covariate-shift problem and leverage modern robust regression tools. Ours is a general approach that can be used to augment any existing OPE method that utilizes the direct method. When augmenting doubly robust methods, we call the resulting method triply robust, since we add robustness to the direct method used in doubly robust. We prove upper bounds on the resulting bias and variance, as well as derive novel minimax bounds based on robust minimax analysis for covariate shift. Our robust regression method is compatible with deep learning, and is thus applicable to complex OPE settings that require powerful function approximators. Finally, we demonstrate superior empirical performance across the standard OPE benchmarks, especially in the case where the logging policy is unknown and must be estimated from data. 1 Introduction Contextual bandits is the online learning setting where a policy repeatedly observes a context, takes an action, and then observes a reward only for the chosen action [Langford and Zhang, 2007].

Online harassment is a significant social problem. Prevention of online harassment requires rapid detection of harassing, offensive, and negative social media posts. In this paper, we propose the use of word embedding models to identify offensive and harassing social media messages in two aspects: detecting fast-changing topics for more effective data collection and representing word semantics in different domains. We demonstrate with preliminary results that using the GloVe (Global Vectors for Word Representation) model facilitates the discovery of new and relevant keywords to use for data collection and trolling detection. Our paper concludes with a discussion of a research agenda to further develop and test word embedding models for identification of social media harassment and trolling.

Samuele Battaglino and Erdem Koyuncu † Abstract --Conventional principal component analysis (PCA) finds a principal vector that maximizes the sum of second powers of principal components. We consider a generalized PCA that aims at maximizing the sum of an arbitrary convex function of principal components. We present a gradient ascent algorithm to solve the problem. For the kernel version of generalized PCA, we show that the solutions can be obtained as fixed points of a simple single-layer recurrent neural network. We also evaluate our algorithms on different datasets. I NTRODUCTION A. Conventional Principal Component Analysis (PCA) PCA and variant methods are dimension reduction techniques that rely on orthogonal transformations [1]-[3].

We study distributed stochastic gradient (D-SG) method and its accelerated variant (D-ASG) for solving decentralized strongly convex stochastic optimization problems where the objective function is distributed over several computational units, lying on a fixed but arbitrary connected communication graph, subject to local communication constraints where noisy estimates of the gradients are available. We develop a framework which allows to choose the stepsize and the momentum parameters of these algorithms in a way to optimize performance by systematically trading off the bias, variance, robustness to gradient noise and dependence to network effects. When gradients do not contain noise, we also prove that distributed accelerated methods can \emph{achieve acceleration}, requiring $\mathcal{O}(\kappa \log(1/\varepsilon))$ gradient evaluations and $\mathcal{O}(\kappa \log(1/\varepsilon))$ communications to converge to the same fixed point with the non-accelerated variant where $\kappa$ is the condition number and $\varepsilon$ is the target accuracy. To our knowledge, this is the first acceleration result where the iteration complexity scales with the square root of the condition number in the context of \emph{primal} distributed inexact first-order methods. For quadratic functions, we also provide finer performance bounds that are tight with respect to bias and variance terms. Finally, we study a multistage version of D-ASG with parameters carefully varied over stages to ensure exact $\mathcal{O}(-k/\sqrt{\kappa})$ linear decay in the bias term as well as optimal $\mathcal{O}(\sigma^2/k)$ in the variance term. We illustrate through numerical experiments that our approach results in practical algorithms that are robust to gradient noise and that can outperform existing methods.

Due to the increasing use of machine learning in practice it becomes more and more important to be able to explain the pred iction and behavior of machine learning models. An instance of expl anations are counterfactual explanations which provide an intuitive an d useful explanations of machine learning models. In this survey we review model-specific methods for efficientl y computing counterfactual explanations of many different machine learning models and propose methods for models that have not been considered in l iterature so far.

Fairness of classification and regression has received much attention recently and various, partially non-compatible, criteria have been proposed. The fairness criteria can be enforced for a given classifier or, alternatively, the data can be adapated to ensure that every classifier trained on the data will adhere to desired fairness criteria. We present a practical data adaption method based on quantile preservation in causal structural equation models. The data adaptation is based on a presumed counterfactual model for the data. While the counterfactual model itself cannot be verified experimentally, we show that certain population notions of fairness are still guaranteed even if the counterfactual model is misspecified. The precise nature of the fulfilled non-causal fairness notion (such as demographic parity, separation or sufficiency) depends on the structure of the underlying causal model and the choice of resolving variables. We describe an implementation of the proposed data adaptation procedure based on Random Forests and demonstrate its practical use on simulated and real-world data.

Recent research has found that many families of machine learning models are vulnerable to adversarial examples: inputs that are specifically designed to cause the target model to produce erroneous outputs. In this survey, we focus on machine learning models in the visual domain, where methods for generating and detecting such examples have been most extensively studied. We explore a variety of adversarial attack methods that apply to image-space content, real world adversarial attacks, adversarial defenses, and the transferability property of adversarial examples. We also discuss strengths and weaknesses of various methods of adversarial attack and defense. Our aim is to provide an extensive coverage of the field, furnishing the reader with an intuitive understanding of the mechanics of adversarial attack and defense mechanisms and enlarging the community of researchers studying this fundamental set of problems.

Gradient Descent has a problem of getting stuck in Local Minima. The following alternatives are available. The following is a summary of answers suggested on CrossValided, originally posted here. There are many optimization algorithms that operate on a fixed number of real values that are correlated (non-separable). We can divide them roughly in 2 categories: gradient-based optimizers and derivative-free optimizers.

This was the subject of a question asked on Quora: What are the top 10 data mining or machine learning algorithms? Some modern algorithms such as collaborative filtering, recommendation engine, segmentation, or attribution modeling, are missing from the lists below. Algorithms from graph theory (to find the shortest path in a graph, or to detect connected components), from operations research (the simplex, to optimize the supply chain), or from time series, are not listed either. And I could not find MCM (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) and related algorithms used to process hierarchical, spatio-temporal and other Bayesian models. My point of view is of course biased, but I would like to also add some algorithms developed or re-developed at the Data Science Central's research lab: These algorithms are described in the article What you wont learn in statistics classes.

The world is an increasingly busy place, and scheduling that appointment with your doctor for a check up might be on the end of your to-do list. As new technologies enter into the world of health and medicine, it is becoming increasingly easier to check your own vitals to ensure you're living the healthiest lifestyle possible. Enter IEEE Member Yangong Zheng and the electronic nose technology being used to detect and diagnose diseases and disorders simply through the smell your body emits. Although the biological olfactory system was inspiration for this type of technology, an electronic nose does not physically look like or depict a human nose. "Artificial systems for noninvasive chemical sensing are commonly referred to as'electronic nose technology'," explains Zheng.