UWEE Tech Report Series

Interactive Submodular Set Cover


UWEETR-2010-0001

Author(s):
Andrew Guillory, Jeff Bilmes

Keywords:
active learning, query learning, submodular set cover

Abstract

We introduce a natural generalization of submodular set cover and exact active learning with a finite hypothesis class (query learning). We call this new problem interactive submodular set cover. Applications include advertising in social networks with hidden information. We give an approximation guarantee for a novel greedy algorithm and give a hardness of approximation result which matches up to constant factors. We also discuss negative results for simpler approaches and present encouraging early experimental results.

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