Related papers: Regret Analysis of Stochastic and Nonstochastic Mu…
This paper studies multi-stage systems with end-to-end bandit feedback. In such systems, each job needs to go through multiple stages, each managed by a different agent, before generating an outcome. Each agent can only control its own…
We consider the cooperative multi-player version of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem. We study the regime where the players cannot communicate but have access to shared randomness. In prior work by the first two authors, a strategy…
We consider the stochastic linear (multi-armed) contextual bandit problem with the possibility of hidden simple multi-armed bandit structure in which the rewards are independent of the contextual information. Algorithms that are designed…
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…
In this paper, we study the multi-armed bandit problem in the batched setting where the employed policy must split data into a small number of batches. While the minimax regret for the two-armed stochastic bandits has been completely…
We study the optimal trade-off between expectation and tail risk for regret distribution in the stochastic multi-armed bandit model. We fully characterize the interplay among three desired properties for policy design: worst-case…
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem where the decision maker can explore and exploit different arms at every round. The exploited arm adds to the decision maker's cumulative reward (without necessarily observing the reward) while the…
Algorithm selection is typically based on models of algorithm performance, learned during a separate offline training sequence, which can be prohibitively expensive. In recent work, we adopted an online approach, in which a performance…
We introduce a novel extension of the canonical multi-armed bandit problem that incorporates an additional strategic innovation: abstention. In this enhanced framework, the agent is not only tasked with selecting an arm at each time step,…
We revisit lower bounds on the regret in the case of multi-armed bandit problems. We obtain non-asymptotic, distribution-dependent bounds and provide straightforward proofs based only on well-known properties of Kullback-Leibler…
Combinatorial multi-armed bandits provide a fundamental online decision-making environment where a decision-maker interacts with an environment across $T$ time steps, each time selecting an action and learning the cost of that action. The…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit problem is well understood when the reward distributions are sub-Gaussian. In this paper we examine the bandit problem under the weaker assumption that the distributions have moments of order 1+\epsilon,…
Stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) mechanisms are widely used in sponsored search auctions, crowdsourcing, online procurement, etc. Existing stochastic MAB mechanisms with a deterministic payment rule, proposed in the literature,…
The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a classical learning task that exemplifies the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. However, standard formulations do not take into account {\em risk}. In online decision making systems, risk is a…
Individual decision-makers consume information revealed by the previous decision makers, and produce information that may help in future decisions. This phenomenon is common in a wide range of scenarios in the Internet economy, as well as…
The stochastic $K$-armed bandit problem has been studied extensively due to its applications in various domains ranging from online advertising to clinical trials. In practice however, the number of arms can be very large resulting in large…
We consider the restless Markov bandit problem, in which the state of each arm evolves according to a Markov process independently of the learner's actions. We suggest an algorithm that after $T$ steps achieves $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret…
We study the adversarial multi-armed bandit problem in a setting where the player incurs a unit cost each time he switches actions. We prove that the player's $T$-round minimax regret in this setting is $\widetilde{\Theta}(T^{2/3})$,…
We study the multi-armed bandit problem with multiple plays and a budget constraint for both the stochastic and the adversarial setting. At each round, exactly $K$ out of $N$ possible arms have to be played (with $1\leq K \leq N$). In…
This paper investigates the problem of regret minimization for multi-armed bandit (MAB) problems with local differential privacy (LDP) guarantee. In stochastic bandit systems, the rewards may refer to the users' activities, which may…