Generalized non-stationary bandits
Abstract
In this paper, we study a non-stationary stochastic bandit problem, which generalizes the switching bandit problem. On top of the switching bandit problem (\textbf{Case a}), we are interested in three concrete examples: (\textbf{b}) the means of the arms are local polynomials, (\textbf{c}) the means of the arms are locally smooth, and (\textbf{d}) the gaps of the arms have a bounded number of inflexion points and where the highest arm mean cannot vary too much in a short range. These three settings are very different, but have in common the following: (i) the number of similarly-sized level sets of the logarithm of the gaps can be controlled, and (ii) the highest mean has a limited number of abrupt changes, and otherwise has limited variations. We propose a single algorithm in this general setting, that in particular solves in an efficient and unified way the four problems (a)-(d) mentioned.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.00725,
title = {Generalized non-stationary bandits},
author = {Anne Gael Manegueu and Alexandra Carpentier and Yi Yu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.00725},
year = {2021}
}