arXiv Machine Learning

Distributionally Robust Optimization via Iterative Algorithms in Continuous Probability Spaces

arXiv:2412. 20556v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We study distributionally robust optimization (DRO) for robust inference when the worst-case distribution is continuous, leading to significant computational challenges due to the infinite-dimensional nature of the optimization problem.

arXiv Statistics ML
5d ago

Brenier Meets Adversarial Training: Optimal Transport Geometry for Robust Learning

The paper introduces a penalized distributionally robust optimization framework that allows an adversary to choose any distribution while incurring a Wasserstein penalty for deviating from the empirical distribution. It shows that the adversary’s problem can be reformulated as optimizing transport maps that push empirical samples to adversarial ones, proving that optimal maps are cyclically monotone. The authors argue that standard per-sample adversarial training violates this property and propose two remedies—multi-start particle ascent and input-convex neural network parameterization—to enforce cyclical monotonicity, demonstrating improved robustness and generalization in experiments on regression, image classification, and control tasks.

By Alireza Abdollahpoorrostam, Ehsan Sharifian, Buse \c{S}en, Marco Cuturi, Daniel Kuhn
arXiv Machine Learning
3d ago

Learning Distributionally Robust First-Order Methods for Convex Optimization

The paper introduces a distributionally robust method for learning hyperparameters of first‑order convex optimization algorithms. By minimizing a Wasserstein‑robust performance estimation problem over a dataset of problem instances, the approach interpolates between classical learning‑to‑optimize (L2O) and worst‑case PEP design. The authors solve the resulting problem with stochastic gradient descent, provide high‑probability risk bounds, and demonstrate that the learned algorithms outperform both worst‑case optimal and vanilla L2O baselines on logistic regression, LASSO, and linear programming tasks.

By Vinit Ranjan, Jisun Park, Bartolomeo Stellato
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 18

Generative models for decision-making under distributional shift

arXiv:2604. 04342v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Many data-driven decision problems are formulated using a nominal distribution estimated from historical data, while performance is ultimately determined by a deployment distribution that may be shifted, context-dependent, partially observed, or stress-induced.

By Xiuyuan Cheng, Yunqin Zhu, Yao Xie
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Aug 13

Wasserstein Filtering: A Sample Selection Method for Robust Distribution Learning

Given a dataset where a portion of the samples are contaminated, our goal is to recover the underlying clean population distribution. To this end, we propose Wasserstein Filtering (WF), a novel sample selection framework that discards a fraction of suspicious samples and estimates the target distribution using the empirical measure of the remaining data.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 30

Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Regret Optimization

arXiv:2504. 10796v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) is widely used for decision-making under uncertainty, but its adversarial focus on worst-case loss can lead to overly conservative policies.

By Lukas-Benedikt Fiechtner, Jose Blanchet
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 26

Multi-Source Complex Network Reconstruction via Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Optimization and Algorithm Unrolling

The paper introduces MS‑WDRO, a multi‑source Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization framework for reconstructing complex network topologies from scarce target‑domain data and abundant heterogeneous source data. It fuses sources via a weighted Wasserstein barycenter, builds an ambiguity set around it, and solves a regularized Laplacian estimator using a provably convergent ADMM scheme. The authors provide finite‑sample guarantees, demonstrate that naive aggregation is suboptimal, and show through experiments on synthetic data and the ABIDE I neuroimaging dataset that MS‑WDRO outperforms seven baselines in graph recovery, sample efficiency, and diagnostic utility, especially when target samples are limited.

By Chuansen Peng, Yifan Xia, Jinshan Zhong, Xiaojing Shen
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

The Observable Wasserstein Distance

arXiv:2605. 09916v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We introduce the observable Wasserstein distance, a framework for deriving lower bounds on the Wasserstein distance between probability measures on Polish metric spaces, designed to bypass the computational intractability of exact optimal transport in large-scale, non-Euclidean datasets.

By Edivaldo Lopes dos Santos, Leandro Vicente Mauri, Washington Mio, Tom Needham