AISTATS 2018poster0 citations

Competing with Automata-based Expert Sequences

Mehryar Mohri, Scott Yang

Abstract

We consider a general framework of online learning with expert advice where regret is defined with respect to sequences of experts accepted by a weighted automaton. Our framework covers several problems previously studied, including competing against k-shifting experts. We give a series of algorithms for this problem, including an automata-based algorithm extending weighted-majority and more efficient algorithms based on the notion of failure transitions. We further present efficient algorithms based on an approximation of the competitor automaton, in particular n-gram models obtained by minimizing the $∞$-Rényi divergence, and present an extensive study of the approximation properties of such models. Finally, we also extend our algorithms and results to the framework of sleeping experts.

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v84-mohri18a,
  title = 	 {Competing with Automata-based Expert Sequences},
  author = 	 {Mohri, Mehryar and Yang, Scott},
  booktitle = 	 {Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics},
  pages = 	 {1732--1740},
  year = 	 {2018},
  editor = 	 {Storkey, Amos and Perez-Cruz, Fernando},
  volume = 	 {84},
  series = 	 {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research},
  month = 	 {09--11 Apr},
  publisher =    {PMLR},
  pdf = 	 {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v84/mohri18a/mohri18a.pdf},
  url = 	 {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v84/mohri18a.html},
  abstract = 	 {We consider a general framework of online learning with expert advice where regret is defined with respect to sequences of experts accepted by a weighted automaton. Our framework covers several problems previously studied, including competing against k-shifting experts. We give a series of algorithms for this problem, including an automata-based algorithm extending weighted-majority and more efficient algorithms based on the notion of failure transitions. We further present efficient algorithms based on an approximation of the competitor automaton, in particular n-gram models obtained by minimizing the $∞$-Rényi divergence, and present an extensive study of the approximation properties of such models. Finally, we also extend our algorithms and results to the framework of sleeping experts.}
}
Competing with Automata-based Expert Sequences · AISTATS 2018