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Learning paradigms based purely on offline data as well as those based solely on sequential online learning have been well-studied in the literature. In this paper, we consider combining offline data with online learning, an area less…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-16 Shubhada Agrawal , Sandeep Juneja , Karthikeyan Shanmugam , Arun Sai Suggala

We consider the best arm identification (BAI) problem in the $K-$armed bandit framework with a modification - the agent is allowed to play a subset of arms at each time slot instead of one arm. Consequently, the agent observes the sample…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Siddhartha Parupudi , Gourab Ghatak

Multi-armed bandits (MAB) model sequential decision making problems, in which a learner sequentially chooses arms with unknown reward distributions in order to maximize its cumulative reward. Most of the prior work on MAB assumes that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-22 Onur Atan , Cem Tekin , Mihaela van der Schaar

We examine a multi-armed bandit problem with contextual information, where the objective is to ensure that each arm receives a minimum aggregated reward across contexts while simultaneously maximizing the total cumulative reward. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Ahmed Ben Yahmed , Hafedh El Ferchichi , Marc Abeille , Vianney Perchet

We study the best-arm identification problem in linear bandit, where the rewards of the arms depend linearly on an unknown parameter $\theta^*$ and the objective is to return the arm with the largest reward. We characterize the complexity…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-11-05 Marta Soare , Alessandro Lazaric , Rémi Munos

We propose a multi-agent variant of the classical multi-armed bandit problem, in which there are $N$ agents and $K$ arms, and pulling an arm generates a (possibly different) stochastic reward for each agent. Unlike the classical multi-armed…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-02-25 Safwan Hossain , Evi Micha , Nisarg Shah

Motivated by applications such as online labor markets we consider a variant of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem where we have a collection of arms representing strategic agents with different performance characteristics. The…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-03-11 Seyed A. Esmaeili , Suho Shin , Aleksandrs Slivkins

We study best arm identification in a variant of the multi-armed bandit problem where the learner has limited precision in arm selection. The learner can only sample arms via certain exploration bundles, which we refer to as boxes. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-11 Kota Srinivas Reddy , P. N. Karthik , Nikhil Karamchandani , Jayakrishnan Nair

We consider the problem of best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit model, under fixed confidence. Given a confidence input $\delta$, the goal is to identify the arm with the highest mean reward with a probability of at least 1 --…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-12-21 El Mehdi Saad , Gilles Blanchard , Nicolas Verzelen

In this paper, we consider a bandit problem in which there are a number of groups each consisting of infinitely many arms. Whenever a new arm is requested from a given group, its mean reward is drawn from an unknown reservoir distribution…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-02 Ivan Lau , Yan Hao Ling , Mayank Shrivastava , Jonathan Scarlett

This paper studies the problem of adaptively sampling from K distributions (arms) in order to identify the largest gap between any two adjacent means. We call this the MaxGap-bandit problem. This problem arises naturally in approximate…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-04 Sumeet Katariya , Ardhendu Tripathy , Robert Nowak

We consider the best arm identification problem in the stochastic multi-armed bandit framework where each arm has a tiny probability of realizing large rewards while with overwhelming probability the reward is zero. A key application of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-15 Anirban Bhattacharjee , Sushant Vijayan , Sandeep K Juneja

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-07-03 Orly Avner , Shie Mannor , Ohad Shamir

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

We consider a stochastic bandit problem with a possibly infinite number of arms. We write $p^*$ for the proportion of optimal arms and $\Delta$ for the minimal mean-gap between optimal and sub-optimal arms. We characterize the optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-08 Rianne de Heide , James Cheshire , Pierre Ménard , Alexandra Carpentier

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-16 Eren Ozbay , Vijay Kamble

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 give nearly-tight upper and lower bounds for the improving multi-armed bandits problem. An instance of this problem has $k$ arms, each of whose reward function is a concave and increasing function of the number of times that arm has been…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-02 Avrim Blum , Kavya Ravichandran

We consider the problem of best arm identification in a variant of multi-armed bandits called linked bandits. In a single interaction with linked bandits, multiple arms are played sequentially until one of them receives a positive reward.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-29 Anant Gupta

Traditional multi-armed bandit (MAB) formulations usually make certain assumptions about the underlying arms' distributions, such as bounds on the support or their tail behaviour. Moreover, such parametric information is usually 'baked'…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-29 Anmol Kagrecha , Jayakrishnan Nair , Krishna Jagannathan