The Mercury Machine Learning Lab is a collaboration between University of Amsterdam, Delft University of Technology and Booking.com. The lab focuses on the development and applications of artificial intelligence to the specific domain of online travel booking and recommendation service systems.

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The collaboration of Mercury Machine Learning Lab combines expertise of scientists from the University of Amsterdam (information retrieval, causality and natural language processing), Delft University of Technology (reinforcement learning) with the unique expertise, experience and availability of big data at Booking. Over the period of five years, six PhD researchers and two postdocs work in the lab on six work packages.

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The research projects cover fundamental research topics, ranging from model-based exploration, parallel model-based reinforcement learning, methods for combined online and offline evaluation, prediction methods that correct for undesired feedback loops and selection bias, domain generalization and domain adaptation, and novel language processing models for better generalization. These topics are both of fundamental scientific importance, as well as of immediate practical relevance for modern online businesses like Booking that aim to maximize customer satisfaction in quickly changing markets with the help of sophisticated data analytics.

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