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Many works have developed no-regret algorithms for contextual bandits with function approximation, where the mean reward function over context-action pairs belongs to a function class. Although there are many approaches to this problem, one…
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…
We study a collaborative multi-agent stochastic linear bandit setting, where $N$ agents that form a network communicate locally to minimize their overall regret. In this setting, each agent has its own linear bandit problem (its own reward…
Motivated by practical needs such as large-scale learning, we study the impact of adaptivity constraints to linear contextual bandits, a central problem in online active learning. We consider two popular limited adaptivity models in…
We introduce a new stochastic smoothing perspective to study adversarial contextual bandit problems. We propose a general algorithm template that represents random perturbation based algorithms and identify several perturbation…
We study the $\textit{single-index bandit}$ problem, where rewards depend on an unknown one-dimensional projection of high-dimensional contexts through an unknown reward function. This model extends linear and generalized linear bandits to…
We study the generalized linear bandit (GLB) problem, a contextual multi-armed bandit framework that extends the classical linear model by incorporating a non-linear link function, thereby modeling a broad class of reward distributions such…
Nonparametric contextual bandit is an important model of sequential decision making problems. Under $\alpha$-Tsybakov margin condition, existing research has established a regret bound of $\tilde{O}\left(T^{1-\frac{\alpha+1}{d+2}}\right)$…
Variance-dependent regret bounds for linear contextual bandits, which improve upon the classical $\tilde{O}(d\sqrt{K})$ regret bound to $\tilde{O}(d\sqrt{\sum_{k=1}^K\sigma_k^2})$, where $d$ is the context dimension, $K$ is the number of…
We consider the general (stochastic) contextual bandit problem under the realizability assumption, i.e., the expected reward, as a function of contexts and actions, belongs to a general function class $\mathcal{F}$. We design a fast and…
Contextual bandit algorithms are at the core of many applications, including recommender systems, clinical trials, and optimal portfolio selection. One of the most popular problems studied in the contextual bandit literature is to maximize…
This paper investigates the robustness of causal bandits (CBs) in the face of temporal model fluctuations. This setting deviates from the existing literature's widely-adopted assumption of constant causal models. The focus is on causal…
Thompson Sampling is one of the oldest heuristics for multi-armed bandit problems. It is a randomized algorithm based on Bayesian ideas, and has recently generated significant interest after several studies demonstrated it to have better…
For the linear bandit problem, we extend the analysis of algorithm CombEXP from [R. Combes, M. S. Talebi Mazraeh Shahi, A. Proutiere, and M. Lelarge. Combinatorial bandits revisited. In C. Cortes, N. D. Lawrence, D. D. Lee, M. Sugiyama, and…
We give an oracle-based algorithm for the adversarial contextual bandit problem, where either contexts are drawn i.i.d. or the sequence of contexts is known a priori, but where the losses are picked adversarially. Our algorithm is…
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…
We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…
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…
We consider linear stochastic bandits where the set of actions is an ellipsoid. We provide the first known minimax optimal algorithm for this problem. We first derive a novel information-theoretic lower bound on the regret of any algorithm,…
We study online learning in contextual pay-per-click auctions where at each of the $T$ rounds, the learner receives some context along with a set of ads and needs to make an estimate on their click-through rate (CTR) in order to run a…