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Contextual bandits are a central framework for sequential decision-making, with applications ranging from recommendation systems to clinical trials. While nonparametric methods can flexibly model complex reward structures, they suffer from…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-01-01 Wanteng Ma , T. Tony Cai

We consider the problem where M agents collaboratively interact with an instance of a stochastic K-armed contextual bandit, where K>>M. The goal of the agents is to simultaneously minimize the cumulative regret over all the agents over a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-16 Jiabin Lin , Shana Moothedath

Contextual multi-armed bandits are classical models in reinforcement learning for sequential decision-making associated with individual information. A widely-used policy for bandits is Thompson Sampling, where samples from a data-driven…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-11-30 Hongju Park , Mohamad Kazem Shirani Faradonbeh

Multi-armed bandit problems are the predominant theoretical model of exploration-exploitation tradeoffs in learning, and they have countless applications ranging from medical trials, to communication networks, to Web search and advertising.…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-09-06 Ashwinkumar Badanidiyuru , Robert Kleinberg , Aleksandrs Slivkins

We define and analyze a multi-agent multi-armed bandit problem in which decision-making agents can observe the choices and rewards of their neighbors under a linear observation cost. Neighbors are defined by a network graph that encodes the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-04-09 Udari Madhushani , Naomi Ehrich Leonard

Motivated by the concept of satisficing in decision-making, we consider the problem of satisficing regret minimization in bandit optimization. In this setting, the learner aims at selecting satisficing arms (arms with mean reward exceeding…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-07-01 Qing Feng , Tianyi Ma , Ruihao Zhu

We consider the problem of maximizing the expected average reward obtained over an infinite time horizon by $n$ weakly coupled Markov decision processes. Our setup is a substantial generalization of the multi-armed restless bandit problem…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-01 Diego Goldsztajn , Konstantin Avrachenkov

The multi-armed bandit formalism has been extensively studied under various attack models, in which an adversary can modify the reward revealed to the player. Previous studies focused on scenarios where the attack value either is bounded at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-19 Ziwei Guan , Kaiyi Ji , Donald J Bucci , Timothy Y Hu , Joseph Palombo , Michael Liston , Yingbin Liang

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-07 Niladri S. Chatterji , Vidya Muthukumar , Peter L. Bartlett

This work addresses the problem of regret minimization in non-stochastic multi-armed bandit problems, focusing on performance guarantees that hold with high probability. Such results are rather scarce in the literature since proving them…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-11-04 Gergely Neu

Multi-armed bandit models have proven to be useful in modeling many real world problems in the areas of control and sequential decision making with partial information. However, in many scenarios, such as those prevalent in healthcare and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-27 Qinyang He , Yonatan Mintz

This work studies a generalized class of restless multi-armed bandits with hidden states and allow cumulative feedback, as opposed to the conventional instantaneous feedback. We call them lazy restless bandits (LRB) as the events of…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2019-01-30 Kesav Kaza , Rahul Meshram , Varun Mehta , S. N. Merchant

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-27 David Simchi-Levi , Zeyu Zheng , Feng Zhu

Contextual bandit algorithms are sensitive to the estimation method of the outcome model as well as the exploration method used, particularly in the presence of rich heterogeneity or complex outcome models, which can lead to difficult…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-12-18 Maria Dimakopoulou , Zhengyuan Zhou , Susan Athey , Guido Imbens

A standard assumption adopted in the multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework is that the mean rewards are constant over time. This assumption can be restrictive in the business world as decision-makers often face an evolving environment where…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-24 Ningyuan Chen , Chun Wang , Longlin Wang

We consider a multi-armed bandit setting where, at the beginning of each round, the learner receives noisy independent, and possibly biased, \emph{evaluations} of the true reward of each arm and it selects $K$ arms with the objective of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-13 Evrard Garcelon , Vashist Avadhanula , Alessandro Lazaric , Matteo Pirotta

A contextual bandit problem is studied in a highly non-stationary environment, which is ubiquitous in various recommender systems due to the time-varying interests of users. Two models with disjoint and hybrid payoffs are considered to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-03 Xiao Xu , Fang Dong , Yanghua Li , Shaojian He , Xin Li

We study a grouped bandit setting where each arm comprises multiple independent sub-arms referred to as attributes. Each attribute of each arm has an independent stochastic reward. We impose the constraint that for an arm to be deemed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-12 Sahil Dharod , Malyala Preethi Sravani , Sakshi Heda , Sharayu Moharir

In many fields such as digital marketing, healthcare, finance, and robotics, it is common to have a well-tested and reliable baseline policy running in production (e.g., a recommender system). Nonetheless, the baseline policy is often…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-11 Evrard Garcelon , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Alessandro Lazaric , Matteo Pirotta

This paper studies the stochastic linear bandit problem, where a decision-maker chooses actions from possibly time-dependent sets of vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and receives noisy rewards. The objective is to minimize regret, the difference…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-24 Nima Hamidi , Mohsen Bayati