Related papers: Regret Analysis of Stochastic and Nonstochastic Mu…

While significant progress has been made in designing algorithms that minimize regret in online decision-making, real-world scenarios often introduce additional complexities, perhaps the most challenging of which is missing outcomes.…

This paper considers the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem and provides a new best-of-both-worlds (BOBW) algorithm that works nearly optimally in both stochastic and adversarial settings. In stochastic settings, some existing BOBW algorithms…

We consider a stochastic bandit problem with countably many arms that belong to a finite set of types, each characterized by a unique mean reward. In addition, there is a fixed distribution over types which sets the proportion of each type…

We study the problem of minimizing gap-dependent regret for single-pass streaming stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB). In this problem, the $n$ arms are present in a stream, and at most $m<n$ arms and their statistics can be stored in the…

We present a two-armed bandit model of decision making under uncertainty where the expected return to investing in the "risky arm" increases when choosing that arm and decreases when choosing the "safe" arm. These dynamics are natural in…

We study the $K$-armed dueling bandit problem, a variation of the standard stochastic bandit problem where the feedback is limited to relative comparisons of a pair of arms. We introduce a tight asymptotic regret lower bound that is based…

This paper studies the deviations of the regret in a stochastic multi-armed bandit problem. When the total number of plays n is known beforehand by the agent, Audibert et al. (2009) exhibit a policy such that with probability at least…

Restless bandit problems are instances of non-stationary multi-armed bandits. These problems have been studied well from the optimization perspective, where the goal is to efficiently find a near-optimal policy when system parameters are…

In several applications of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, the traditional objective of maximizing the expected total reward can be inappropriate. In this paper, motivated by certain operational concerns in online platforms, we…

We study the sequential resource allocation problem where a decision maker repeatedly allocates budgets between resources. Motivating examples include allocating limited computing time or wireless spectrum bands to multiple users (i.e.,…

I present the first algorithm for stochastic finite-armed bandits that simultaneously enjoys order-optimal problem-dependent regret and worst-case regret. Besides the theoretical results, the new algorithm is simple, efficient and…

We consider a sequential decision-making problem where an agent can take one action at a time and each action has a stochastic temporal extent, i.e., a new action cannot be taken until the previous one is finished. Upon completion, the…

This paper considers a stochastic Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem with dual objectives: (i) quick identification and commitment to the optimal arm, and (ii) reward maximization throughout a sequence of $T$ consecutive rounds. Though each…

We consider a situation where an agent has $T$ ressources to be allocated to a larger number $N$ of actions. Each action can be completed at most once and results in a stochastic reward with unknown mean. The goal of the agent is to…

The Colonel Blotto game is a renowned resource allocation problem with a long-standing literature in game theory (almost 100 years). However, its scope of application is still restricted by the lack of studies on the incomplete-information…

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) is a classic model for understanding the exploration-exploitation trade-off. The traditional MAB model for recommendation systems assumes the user stays in the system for the entire learning horizon. In new online…

Contextual bandits have the same exploration-exploitation trade-off as standard multi-armed bandits. On adding positive externalities that decay with time, this problem becomes much more difficult as wrong decisions at the start are hard to…

Psychological research shows that enjoyment of many goods is subject to satiation, with short-term satisfaction declining after repeated exposures to the same item. Nevertheless, proposed algorithms for powering recommender systems seldom…

Motivated by practical applications, chiefly clinical trials, we study the regret achievable for stochastic bandits under the constraint that the employed policy must split trials into a small number of batches. We propose a simple policy,…

We introduce and study a new variant of the multi-armed bandit problem (MAB), called the survival bandit problem (S-MAB). While in both problems, the objective is to maximize the so-called cumulative reward, in this new variant, the…