Related papers: The Simulator: Understanding Adaptive Sampling in …
We design and implement an adaptive experiment (a ``contextual bandit'') to learn a targeted treatment assignment policy, where the goal is to use a participant's survey responses to determine which charity to expose them to in a donation…
Multi armed bandit (MAB) algorithms have been increasingly used to complement or integrate with A/B tests and randomized clinical trials in e-commerce, healthcare, and policymaking. Recent developments incorporate possible delayed feedback.…
We introduce a latency-aware contextual bandit framework that generalizes the standard contextual bandit problem, where the learner adaptively selects arms and switches decision sets under action delays. In this setting, the learner…
Conducting randomized experiments in education settings raises the question of how we can use machine learning techniques to improve educational interventions. Using Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) algorithms like Thompson Sampling (TS) in…
This paper focuses on building personalized player models solely from player behavior in the context of adaptive games. We present two main contributions: The first is a novel approach to player modeling based on multi-armed bandits (MABs).…
In fixed budget bandit identification, an algorithm sequentially observes samples from several distributions up to a given final time. It then answers a query about the set of distributions. A good algorithm will have a small probability of…
Although the classical version of the Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework has been applied successfully to several practical problems, in many real-world applications, the possible actions are not presented to the learner simultaneously,…
We propose a new problem setting to study the sequential interactions between a recommender system and a user. Instead of assuming the user is omniscient, static, and explicit, as the classical practice does, we sketch a more realistic user…
Stochastic multi-armed bandits are a sequential-decision-making framework, where, at each interaction step, the learner selects an arm and observes a stochastic reward. Within the context of best-arm identification (BAI) problems, the goal…
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…
In a typical stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, the objective is often to maximize the expected sum of rewards over some time horizon $T$. While the choice of a strategy that accomplishes that is optimal with no additional information,…
During online decision making in Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB), one needs to conduct inference on the true mean reward of each arm based on data collected so far at each step. However, since the arms are adaptively selected--thereby yielding…
We study the fixed-confidence best-arm identification problem in unimodal bandits, in which the means of the arms increase with the index of the arm up to their maximum, then decrease. We derive two lower bounds on the stopping time of any…
Adaptive and sequential experiment design is a well-studied area in numerous domains. We survey and synthesize the work of the online statistical learning paradigm referred to as multi-armed bandits integrating the existing research as a…
Convex sample approximations of chance-constrained optimization problems are considered, in which chance constraints are replaced by sets of sampled constraints. We propose a randomized sample selection strategy that allows tight bounds to…
In the classical multi-armed bandit problem, instance-dependent algorithms attain improved performance on "easy" problems with a gap between the best and second-best arm. Are similar guarantees possible for contextual bandits? While…
The multi-armed bandit is a concise model for the problem of iterated decision-making under uncertainty. In each round, a gambler must pull one of $K$ arms of a slot machine, without any foreknowledge of their payouts, except that they are…
In this paper, we provide the first investigation into adaptive combinatorial experimental design, focusing on the trade-off between regret minimization and statistical power in combinatorial multi-armed bandits (CMAB). While minimizing…
In this work we introduce a novel approach, based on sampling, for finding assignments that are likely to be solutions to stochastic constraint satisfaction problems and constraint optimisation problems. Our approach reduces the size of the…
Originally motivated by default risk management applications, this paper investigates a novel problem, referred to as the profitable bandit problem here. At each step, an agent chooses a subset of the K possible actions. For each action…