The paper compares two strategies for contextual decision making: predict‑then‑optimize (PtO), which learns the conditional expected objective, and generate‑then‑optimize (GtO), which learns conditional uncertainty and optimizes over generated scenarios. It analyzes how the choice of learning target influences statistical accuracy and optimization tractability, showing that smoothness can compensate for GtO’s higher dimensionality. The study also discusses tradeoffs in convexity preservation, scenario‑wise convexity, and model flexibility, supported by synthetic experiments and a real case study.
arXiv:2606. 01081v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Decision-focused learning (DFL) trains predictive models by optimizing downstream decision quality rather than standalone prediction accuracy.
arXiv:2502. 05349v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Two-stage stochastic programs (2SPs) are widely used for decision-making under uncertainty, but their practical deployment is often limited by the large number of scenarios needed to approximate the conditional distribution of uncertain outcomes.
arXiv:2602. 08261v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Auto-bidding systems strive to maximize marketing value while maintaining high compliance with efficiency constraints, such as Target Cost-Per-Action (CPA).
arXiv:2511.20413v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: \emph{Decision-focused learning} (DFL) trains predictive models to optimize downstream decisions rather than prediction accuracy alone. While...
The paper introduces Task Specialization Fine-Tuning (TSFT), an online framework that allocates a limited fine‑tuning budget across multiple task regions in Contextual Reinforcement Learning. TSFT predicts fine‑tuning performance with a simple parametric model and solves the budget allocation problem exactly using integer linear programming. Experiments on combinatorial optimization, continuous control, and LLM fine‑tuning show that TSFT outperforms baselines in task coverage and approaches oracle performance.
arXiv:2609.01493v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Black-Box Optimization (BBO) has found broad applications, but evolutionary algorithms and Bayesian optimization face efficiency challenges as real-w...
arXiv:2502. 04646v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Weighted sampling -- sampling from a probability density function (PDF) proportional to the product of a base PDF and a weight function -- is a fundamental technique with wide-ranging applications in variance reduction, biased sampling, data augmentation, and more.
arXiv:2507.06529v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Bayesian optimization (BO) is a powerful paradigm for optimizing expensive black-box functions. Traditional BO methods typically rely on separate h...
arXiv:2509. 22992v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: As machine learning models continue to grow in size and complexity, efficient serving faces increasingly broad trade-offs spanning accuracy, latency, resource usage, and other objectives.
Effective machine learning depends not only on how we model data, but also on what data we choose to collect. While large sequence models have revolutionized data modeling, the problem of automated data selection, or "intrinsic curiosity", remains a significant challenge.
arXiv:2607. 10694v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study the problem of optimal continual fine-tuning for a pre-trained Foundation Model deployed at a resource-limited device.
We study finite stochastic partial monitoring (PM) games with side information, a paradigm of sequential learning with partial feedback. On each round $t \in [T]$, both player and environment observe...