Abstract: Spin systems on trees have found applications ranging from the reconstruction of phylogenies to the analysis of networks with community structure. A key feature of such processes is the interplay between the growth of the tree and the decay of correlations along it. How the resulting threshold phenomena impact estimation depends on the problem…

Abstract: Why are we interested in the causal structure of a process? In classical prediction tasks, for example, it seems that no causal knowledge is required. In many situations, however, we are interested in a system's behavior after parts of this system have been changed. Here, causal models become important because they are usually considered…

Abstract: We consider the problem of bandit optimization, inspired by stochastic optimization and online learning with bandit feedback. In this problem, the objective is to minimize a global, not necessarily cumulative, convex loss function. This framework allows us to study a very general class of problems, with applications in statistics, machine learning, and other fields.…