Related papers: Finding a most biased coin with fewest flips
We consider the combinatorial bandits problem with semi-bandit feedback under finite sampling budget constraints, in which the learner can carry out its action only for a limited number of times specified by an overall budget. The action is…
The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a classic example of the exploration-exploitation dilemma. It is concerned with maximising the total rewards for a gambler by sequentially pulling an arm from a multi-armed slot machine where each arm…
We study the problem of identifying the best arm in a stochastic multi-armed bandit game. Given a set of $n$ arms indexed from $1$ to $n$, each arm $i$ is associated with an unknown reward distribution supported on $[0,1]$ with mean…
We study the fixed-confidence best-arm identification problem in unimodal bandits, in which the means of the arms increase with the index of the arm up to their maximum, then decrease. We derive two lower bounds on the stopping time of any…
We propose the first fully-adaptive algorithm for pure exploration in linear bandits---the task to find the arm with the largest expected reward, which depends on an unknown parameter linearly. While existing methods partially or entirely…
Have you ever taken a disputed decision by tossing a coin and checking its landing side? This ancestral "heads or tails" practice is still widely used when facing undecided alternatives since it relies on the intuitive fairness of…
Many real-world functions are defined over both categorical and category-specific continuous variables and thus cannot be optimized by traditional Bayesian optimization (BO) methods. To optimize such functions, we propose a new method that…
This paper aims to put forward the concept that learning to take safe actions in unknown environments, even with probability one guarantees, can be achieved without the need for an unbounded number of exploratory trials, provided that one…
We consider the problem of sequentially choosing between a set of unbiased Monte Carlo estimators to minimize the mean-squared-error (MSE) of a final combined estimate. By reducing this task to a stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, we…
In the classical multi-armed bandit problem, d arms are available to the decision maker who pulls them sequentially in order to maximize his cumulative reward. Guarantees can be obtained on a relative quantity called regret, which scales…
We introduce a new model of stochastic bandits with adversarial corruptions which aims to capture settings where most of the input follows a stochastic pattern but some fraction of it can be adversarially changed to trick the algorithm,…
The toss of a coin is usually regarded as the epitome of randomness, and has been used for ages as a means to resolve disputes in a simple, fair way. Perhaps as ancient as consulting objects such as coins and dice is the art of maliciously…
The multi-armed bandit problem is a core framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but classical algorithms often fail in environments with hidden, time-varying states that confound reward estimation and optimal action…
Reinforcement learning addresses the dilemma between exploration to find profitable actions and exploitation to act according to the best observations already made. Bandit problems are one such class of problems in stateless environments…
In multi-armed bandit problems, the typical goal is to identify the arm with the highest reward. This paper explores a threshold-based bandit problem, aiming to select an arm based on its relation to a prescribed threshold \(\tau \). We…
Multi-armed bandit problems are considered as a paradigm of the trade-off between exploring the environment to find profitable actions and exploiting what is already known. In the stationary case, the distributions of the rewards do not…
We consider the classic problem of $(\epsilon,\delta)$-PAC learning a best arm where the goal is to identify with confidence $1-\delta$ an arm whose mean is an $\epsilon$-approximation to that of the highest mean arm in a multi-armed bandit…
We consider the classical problem of sequential resource allocation where a decision maker must repeatedly divide a budget between several resources, each with diminishing returns. This can be recast as a specific stochastic optimization…
Fixed-budget best-arm identification (BAI) is a bandit problem where the agent maximizes the probability of identifying the optimal arm within a fixed budget of observations. In this work, we study this problem in the Bayesian setting. We…
Finding a counterfeit coin with the different weight from a set of visually identical coin using a balance, usually a two-armed balance, known as the balance question, is an intersting and inspiring question. Its variants involve…