Related papers: Learning the distribution with largest mean: two b…
We study the distribution of regret in stochastic multi-armed bandits and episodic reinforcement learning through a unified framework. We formalize a distributional regret bound as a probabilistic guarantee that holds uniformly over all…
We consider a multi-armed bandit setting with finitely many arms, in which each arm yields an $M$-dimensional vector reward upon selection. We assume that the reward of each dimension (a.k.a. {\em objective}) is generated independently of…
We study the non-stationary stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, where the reward statistics of each arm may change several times during the course of learning. The performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated in terms of their…
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…
We consider a bandit problem where the buget is smaller than the number of arms, which may be infinite. In this regime, the usual objective in the literature is to minimize simple regret. To analyze broad classes of distributions with…
We consider a novel multi-arm bandit (MAB) setup, where a learner needs to communicate the actions to distributed agents over erasure channels, while the rewards for the actions are directly available to the learner through external…
The objective of canonical multi-armed bandits is to identify and repeatedly select an arm with the largest reward, often in the form of the expected value of the arm's probability distribution. Such a utilitarian perspective and focus on…
Stochastic multi-armed bandits form a class of online learning problems that have important applications in online recommendation systems, adaptive medical treatment, and many others. Even though potential attacks against these learning…
This paper studies the Best-of-K Bandit game: At each time the player chooses a subset S among all N-choose-K possible options and observes reward max(X(i) : i in S) where X is a random vector drawn from a joint distribution. The objective…
We study the multi-player stochastic multiarmed bandit (MAB) problem in an abruptly changing environment. We consider a collision model in which a player receives reward at an arm if it is the only player to select the arm. We design two…
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 multi-task representation learning for the problem of pure exploration in bilinear bandits. In bilinear bandits, an action takes the form of a pair of arms from two different entity types and the reward is a bilinear function of…
Much of the recent literature on bandit learning focuses on algorithms that aim to converge on an optimal action. One shortcoming is that this orientation does not account for time sensitivity, which can play a crucial role when learning an…
Sequential decision-making algorithms such as multi-armed bandits can find optimal personalized decisions, but are notoriously sample-hungry. In personalized medicine, for example, training a bandit from scratch for every patient is…
Multi-armed bandit algorithms have become a reference solution for handling the explore/exploit dilemma in recommender systems, and many other important real-world problems, such as display advertisement. However, such algorithms usually…
We consider a bandit problem which involves sequential sampling from two populations (arms). Each arm produces a noisy reward realization which depends on an observable random covariate. The goal is to maximize cumulative expected reward.…
Sequential portfolio selection has attracted increasing interests in the machine learning and quantitative finance communities in recent years. As a mathematical framework for reinforcement learning policies, the stochastic multi-armed…
Mode estimation is a classical problem in statistics with a wide range of applications in machine learning. Despite this, there is little understanding in its robustness properties under possibly adversarial data contamination. In this…
Determining what experience to generate to best facilitate learning (i.e. exploration) is one of the distinguishing features and open challenges in reinforcement learning. The advent of distributed agents that interact with parallel…
We consider the problem of sequentially allocating resources in a censored semi-bandits setup, where the learner allocates resources at each step to the arms and observes loss. The loss depends on two hidden parameters, one specific to the…