提出自适应数据采集停止策略,平衡信息收益与采样成本。
How much Data do We Need? Sequential Data Collection for Stochastic Programming

- 基于贝叶斯学习动态更新参数信念,逐轮评估额外数据的边际收益。
- 在指数分布需求的新货商问题中,减少冗余采样并接近最优决策性能。
- 适合需控制数据成本的动态优化场景,如供应链、金融决策。
数据驱动优化通常需要收集数据以估计不确定模型参数,然后求解决策问题。然而,实际中数据获取可能带来显著成本,因此确定何时停止数据收集至关重要。本文研究了在参数不确定性下的随机优化中,序列数据采集的最优停止问题。提出一种以收益为导向的停止框架,平衡信息增益与采样成本。将未知分布参数置于贝叶斯学习框架下,随新观测值逐步更新信念。每轮决策者评估额外数据的期望边际收益与单位采样成本之比,决定是否继续采样或停止并执行优化决策。基于该框架,设计多种停止策略。在需求呈指数分布的新货商问题上进行数值实验,对比固定预算与事后理想基准策略。结果表明,基于收益的停止规则可显著减少不必要的数据采集,同时实现近似最优的决策表现,验证了自适应停止在数据驱动优化中的有效性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Data-driven optimization often requires collecting data to estimate uncertain model parameters before solving the underlying decision problem. In practice, however, data acquisition may incur non-negligible costs, making it critical to determine when to stop additional data collection. In this paper, we study an optimal stopping problem for sequential data collection in stochastic optimization under parameter uncertainty. We propose a benefit-driven stopping framework that balances information gain and sampling cost. We model the unknown distribution parameter within a Bayesian learning framework and update beliefs sequentially as new observations are collected. At each iteration, the decision maker evaluates the expected marginal benefit of additional data relative to the unit sampling cost and determines whether to continue sampling or stop and implement the optimization decision. Based on this framework, we develop several stopping policies. The proposed policies are evaluated through a newsvendor problem with exponentially distributed demand. Numerical experiments compare the policies with fixed-budget and hindsight benchmark strategies. The results show that benefit-driven stopping rules can substantially reduce unnecessary data collection while achieving near-optimal decision performance, demonstrating the effectiveness of adaptive stopping in data-driven optimization.
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