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Gaussian process (GP) bandits provide a powerful framework for performing blackbox optimization of unknown functions. The characteristics of the unknown function depend heavily on the assumed GP prior. Most work in the literature assume…

In this paper, we study the application of the Thompson sampling (TS) methodology to the stochastic combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) framework. We first analyze the standard TS algorithm for the general CMAB model when the outcome…

We study multi-armed bandit problems with graph feedback, in which the decision maker is allowed to observe the neighboring actions of the chosen action, in a setting where the graph may vary over time and is never fully revealed to the…

We present a novel extension of Thompson Sampling for stochastic sequential decision problems with graph feedback, even when the graph structure itself is unknown and/or changing. We provide theoretical guarantees on the Bayesian regret of…

We consider the Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem, where an agent sequentially chooses actions and observes rewards for the actions it took. While the majority of algorithms try to minimize the regret, i.e., the cumulative difference between…

Thompson sampling (TS) is widely used in sequential decision making due to its ease of use and appealing empirical performance. However, many existing analytical and empirical results for TS rely on restrictive assumptions on reward…

We propose ${\tt AdaTS}$, a Thompson sampling algorithm that adapts sequentially to bandit tasks that it interacts with. The key idea in ${\tt AdaTS}$ is to adapt to an unknown task prior distribution by maintaining a distribution over its…

In many biomedical, science, and engineering problems, one must sequentially decide which action to take next so as to maximize rewards. One general class of algorithms for optimizing interactions with the world, while simultaneously…

Thompson sampling (TS) has attracted a lot of interest in the bandit area. It was introduced in the 1930s but has not been theoretically proven until recent years. All of its analysis in the combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) setting…

We study the efficiency of Thompson sampling for contextual bandits. Existing Thompson sampling-based algorithms need to construct a Laplace approximation (i.e., a Gaussian distribution) of the posterior distribution, which is inefficient…

As two popular schools of machine learning, online learning and evolutionary computations have become two important driving forces behind real-world decision making engines for applications in biomedicine, economics, and engineering fields.…

We consider a finite-horizon multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem in a Bayesian setting, for which we propose an information relaxation sampling framework. With this framework, we define an intuitive family of control policies that include…

We study a posterior sampling approach to efficient exploration in constrained reinforcement learning. Alternatively to existing algorithms, we propose two simple algorithms that are more efficient statistically, simpler to implement and…

Cold-start exploration is a core challenge in large-scale recommender systems: new or data-sparse items must receive traffic to estimate value, but over-exploration harms users and wastes impressions. In practice, Thompson Sampling (TS) is…

We here adopt Bayesian nonparametric mixture models to extend multi-armed bandits in general, and Thompson sampling in particular, to scenarios where there is reward model uncertainty. In the stochastic multi-armed bandit, the reward for…

We consider Thompson Sampling (TS) for linear combinatorial semi-bandits and subgaussian rewards. We propose the first known TS whose finite-time regret does not scale exponentially with the dimension of the problem. We further show the…

Non-stationary multi-armed bandit (NS-MAB) problems have recently received significant attention. NS-MAB are typically modelled in two scenarios: abruptly changing, where reward distributions remain constant for a certain period and change…

Using bandit algorithms to conduct adaptive randomised experiments can minimise regret, but it poses major challenges for statistical inference (e.g., biased estimators, inflated type-I error and reduced power). Recent attempts to address…

We investigate stochastic combinatorial multi-armed bandit with semi-bandit feedback (CMAB). In CMAB, the question of the existence of an efficient policy with an optimal asymptotic regret (up to a factor poly-logarithmic with the action…

Most existing approximate Thompson Sampling (TS) algorithms for multi-armed bandits use Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) or its variants in each round to sample from the posterior, relaxing the need for conjugacy assumptions…