13 accepted papers
We consider the problem of transfer learning in Neyman–Pearson classification, where the objective is to minimize the error w.r.t. a distribution $\mu_1$, subject to the constraint that the error w.r.t. a distribution $\mu_0$ remains below a prescribed threshold. While transfer learning has been ext…
Theoretical works on supervised transfer learning (STL)---where the learner has access to labeled samples from both source and target distributions---have for the most part focused on statistical aspects of the problem, while efficient optimization has received less attention. We consider the probl…
We consider the problem of transfer learning in outlier detection where target abnormal data is rare. While transfer learning has been considered extensively in traditional classification, the problem of transfer in outlier detection and more generally in imbalanced classification settings has recei…
A critical barrier to learning an accurate decision rule for outlier detection is the scarcity of outlier data. As such, practitioners often turn to the use of similar but imperfect outlier data from which they might \emph{transfer} information to the target outlier detection task. Despite the recen…
We study nonparametric contextual bandits where Lipschitz mean reward functions may change over time. We first establish the minimax dynamic regret rate in this less understood setting in terms of number of changes $L$ and total-variation $V$, both capturing all changes in distribution over context…
We consider nonparametric classification with smooth regression functions, where it is well known that notions of margin in E[Y|X] determine fast or slow rates in both active and passive learning. Here we elucidate a striking distinction between the two settings. Namely, we show that some seemingly…
The main contribution of the paper is to show that Gaussian sketching of a kernel-Gram matrix $\bm K$ yields an operator whose counterpart in an RKHS $\cal H$, is a \emph{random projection} operator—in the spirit of Johnson-Lindenstrauss (J-L) lemma. To be precise, given a random matrix $Z$ with i.i…
We aim to understand the value of additional labeled or unlabeled target data in transfer learning, for any given amount of source data; this is motivated by practical questions around minimizing sampling costs, whereby, target data is usually harder or costlier to acquire than source data, but can…
We propose a simple approach which, given distributed computing resources, can nearly achieve the accuracy of k-NN prediction, while matching (or improving) the faster prediction time of 1-NN. The approach consists of aggregating denoised 1-NN predictors over a small number of distributed subsamples…
We present a weighted-majority classification approach over subtrees of a fixed tree, which provably achieves excess-risk of the same order as the best tree-pruning. Furthermore, the computational efficiency of pruning is maintained at both training and testing time despite having to aggregate over…
We provide initial seedings to the Quick Shift clustering algorithm, which approximate the locally high-density regions of the data. Such seedings act as more stable and expressive cluster-cores than the singleton modes found by Quick Shift. We establish statistical consistency guarantees for this m…
Density-ratio estimation (i.e. estimating $f = f_Q/f_P$ for two unknown distributions Q and P) has proved useful in many Machine Learning tasks, e.g., risk-calibration in transfer-learning, two-sample tests, and also useful in common techniques such importance sampling and bias correction. While the…
We present a procedure that can estimate – with statistical consistency guarantees – any local-maxima of a density, under benign distributional conditions. The procedure estimates all such local maxima, or modal-sets, of any bounded shape or dimension, including usual point-modes. In practice, modal…