Related papers: A study of Thompson Sampling with Parameter h
In this note, we introduce a general version of the well-known elliptical potential lemma that is a widely used technique in the analysis of algorithms in sequential learning and decision-making problems. We consider a stochastic linear…
We introduce the safe linear stochastic bandit framework---a generalization of linear stochastic bandits---where, in each stage, the learner is required to select an arm with an expected reward that is no less than a predetermined (safe)…
Thompson Sampling (TS) and its variants are powerful Multi-Armed Bandit algorithms used to balance exploration and exploitation strategies in active learning. Yet, their probabilistic nature often turns them into a "black box", hindering…
Multi-armed bandits (MAB) are extensively studied in various settings where the objective is to \textit{maximize} the actions' outcomes (i.e., rewards) over time. Since safety is crucial in many real-world problems, safe versions of MAB…
We address online combinatorial optimization when the player has a prior over the adversary's sequence of losses. In this framework, Russo and Van Roy proposed an information-theoretic analysis of Thompson Sampling based on the information…
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…
Thompson sampling (TS) is a simple, effective stochastic policy in Bayesian decision making. It samples the posterior belief about the reward profile and optimizes the sample to obtain a candidate decision. In continuous optimization, the…
We study the best arm identification (BEST-1-ARM) problem, which is defined as follows. We are given $n$ stochastic bandit arms. The $i$th arm has a reward distribution $D_i$ with an unknown mean $\mu_{i}$. Upon each play of the $i$th arm,…
Thompson Sampling is a well established approach to bandit and reinforcement learning problems. However its use in continuum armed bandit problems has received relatively little attention. We provide the first bounds on the regret of…
We consider the Max $K$-Armed Bandit problem, where a learning agent is faced with several sources (arms) of items (rewards), and interested in finding the best item overall. At each time step the agent chooses an arm, and obtains a random…
For the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem from a constrained model that generalizes the classical one, we show that an asymptotic optimality is achievable by a simple strategy extended from the $\epsilon_t$-greedy strategy. We…
The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a ubiquitous decision-making problem that exemplifies the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Standard formulations exclude risk in decision making. Risk notably complicates the basic reward-maximising…
The PhD thesis of Maillard (2013) presents a rather obscure algorithm for the $K$-armed bandit problem. This less-known algorithm, which we call Maillard sampling (MS), computes the probability of choosing each arm in a \textit{closed…
Performance of machine learning algorithms depends critically on identifying a good set of hyperparameters. While recent approaches use Bayesian optimization to adaptively select configurations, we focus on speeding up random search through…
Motivated by distributed selection problems, we formulate a new variant of multi-player multi-armed bandit (MAB) model, which captures stochastic arrival of requests to each arm, as well as the policy of allocating requests to players. The…
We study the convex hull membership (CHM) problem in the pure exploration setting where one aims to efficiently and accurately determine if a given point lies in the convex hull of means of a finite set of distributions. We give a complete…
Wireless communication systems operate in complex time-varying environments. Therefore, selecting the optimal configuration parameters in these systems is a challenging problem. For wireless links, \emph{rate selection} is used to select…
We study the best-arm identification problem in multi-armed bandits with stochastic, potentially private rewards, when the goal is to identify the arm with the highest quantile at a fixed, prescribed level. First, we propose a (non-private)…
We study finite-armed stochastic bandits where the rewards of each arm might be correlated to those of other arms. We introduce a novel phased algorithm that exploits the given structure to build confidence sets over the parameters of the…
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…