Learning Solutions of Stochastic Optimization Problems with Bayesian Neural Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Lahoud, Alan A., Schaffernicht, Erik, Stork, Johannes A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Lahoud, Alan A.
Schaffernicht, Erik
Stork, Johannes A.
author_facet Lahoud, Alan A.
Schaffernicht, Erik
Stork, Johannes A.
contents Mathematical solvers use parametrized Optimization Problems (OPs) as inputs to yield optimal decisions. In many real-world settings, some of these parameters are unknown or uncertain. Recent research focuses on predicting the value of these unknown parameters using available contextual features, aiming to decrease decision regret by adopting end-to-end learning approaches. However, these approaches disregard prediction uncertainty and therefore make the mathematical solver susceptible to provide erroneous decisions in case of low-confidence predictions. We propose a novel framework that models prediction uncertainty with Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) and propagates this uncertainty into the mathematical solver with a Stochastic Programming technique. The differentiable nature of BNNs and differentiable mathematical solvers allow for two different learning approaches: In the Decoupled learning approach, we update the BNN weights to increase the quality of the predictions' distribution of the OP parameters, while in the Combined learning approach, we update the weights aiming to directly minimize the expected OP's cost function in a stochastic end-to-end fashion. We do an extensive evaluation using synthetic data with various noise properties and a real dataset, showing that decisions regret are generally lower (better) with both proposed methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_03082
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning Solutions of Stochastic Optimization Problems with Bayesian Neural Networks
Lahoud, Alan A.
Schaffernicht, Erik
Stork, Johannes A.
Machine Learning
Mathematical solvers use parametrized Optimization Problems (OPs) as inputs to yield optimal decisions. In many real-world settings, some of these parameters are unknown or uncertain. Recent research focuses on predicting the value of these unknown parameters using available contextual features, aiming to decrease decision regret by adopting end-to-end learning approaches. However, these approaches disregard prediction uncertainty and therefore make the mathematical solver susceptible to provide erroneous decisions in case of low-confidence predictions. We propose a novel framework that models prediction uncertainty with Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) and propagates this uncertainty into the mathematical solver with a Stochastic Programming technique. The differentiable nature of BNNs and differentiable mathematical solvers allow for two different learning approaches: In the Decoupled learning approach, we update the BNN weights to increase the quality of the predictions' distribution of the OP parameters, while in the Combined learning approach, we update the weights aiming to directly minimize the expected OP's cost function in a stochastic end-to-end fashion. We do an extensive evaluation using synthetic data with various noise properties and a real dataset, showing that decisions regret are generally lower (better) with both proposed methods.
title Learning Solutions of Stochastic Optimization Problems with Bayesian Neural Networks
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.03082