English
Related papers

Related papers: Index-Based Policy for Risk-Averse Multi-Armed Ban…

200 papers

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) is a widely adopted framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty. Traditional bandit algorithms rely solely on online data, which tends to be scarce as it must be gathered during the online phase when…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-04-23 Wenlong Ji , Yihan Pan , Ruihao Zhu , Lihua Lei

The (contextual) multi-armed bandit problem (MAB) provides a formalization of sequential decision-making which has many applications. However, validly evaluating MAB policies is challenging; we either resort to simulations which inherently…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-22 Jules Kruijswijk , Petri Parvinen , Maurits Kaptein

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms have achieved significant success in sequential decision-making applications, under the premise that humans perfectly implement the recommended policy. However, existing methods often overlook the crucial…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-10-07 Changxiao Cai , Jiacheng Zhang

We consider the classic online learning and stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problems, when at each step, the online policy can probe and find out which of a small number ($k$) of choices has better reward (or loss) before making its…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-11-08 Aditya Bhaskara , Sreenivas Gollapudi , Sungjin Im , Kostas Kollias , Kamesh Munagala

This paper is in the field of stochastic Multi-Armed Bandits (MABs), i.e. those sequential selection techniques able to learn online using only the feedback given by the chosen option (a.k.a. $arm$). We study a particular case of the rested…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-11-28 Marco Fiandri , Alberto Maria Metelli , Francesco Trov`o

Existing frameworks for evaluating and comparing generative models consider an offline setting, where the evaluator has access to large batches of data produced by the models. However, in practical scenarios, the goal is often to identify…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-12 Xiaoyan Hu , Ho-fung Leung , Farzan Farnia

Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) algorithms are widely used in recommender systems that require continuous, incremental learning. A core aspect of MABs is the exploration-exploitation trade-off: choosing between exploiting items likely to be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Pedro R. Pires , Gregorio F. Azevedo , Pietro L. Campos , Rafael T. Sereicikas , Tiago A. Almeida

In this paper, we investigate a new multi-armed bandit (MAB) online learning model that considers real-world phenomena in many recommender systems: (i) the learning agent cannot pull the arms by itself and thus has to offer rewards to users…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-01 Tianchen Zhou , Jia Liu , Chaosheng Dong , Jingyuan Deng

We study the nonstationary stochastic Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem in which the distribution of rewards associated with each arm are assumed to be time-varying and the total variation in the expected rewards is subject to a variation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-25 Lai Wei , Vaibhav Srivastava

We consider the query recommendation problem in closed loop interactive learning settings like online information gathering and exploratory analytics. The problem can be naturally modelled using the Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework with…

One of the key drivers of complexity in the classical (stochastic) multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is the difference between mean rewards in the top two arms, also known as the instance gap. The celebrated Upper Confidence Bound (UCB)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-27 Anand Kalvit , Assaf Zeevi

We propose a multi-agent multi-armed bandit (MA-MAB) framework aimed at ensuring fair outcomes across agents while maximizing overall system performance. A key challenge in this setting is decision-making under limited information about arm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-28 Tianyi Xu , Jiaxin Liu , Nicholas Mattei , Zizhan Zheng

We study the stochastic Budgeted Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem, where a player chooses from $K$ arms with unknown expected rewards and costs. The goal is to maximize the total reward under a budget constraint. A player thus seeks to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Marco Heyden , Vadim Arzamasov , Edouard Fouché , Klemens Böhm

Experimentation with interference poses a significant challenge in contemporary online platforms. Prior research on experimentation with interference has concentrated on the final output of a policy. The cumulative performance, while…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-17 Su Jia , Peter Frazier , Nathan Kallus

This paper introduces the first asymptotically optimal strategy for a multi armed bandit (MAB) model under side constraints. The side constraints model situations in which bandit activations are limited by the availability of certain…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-10 Apostolos N. Burnetas , Odysseas Kanavetas , Michael N. Katehakis

The sample mean is among the most well studied estimators in statistics, having many desirable properties such as unbiasedness and consistency. However, when analyzing data collected using a multi-armed bandit (MAB) experiment, the sample…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-05-03 Jaehyeok Shin , Aaditya Ramdas , Alessandro Rinaldo

The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem models a decision-maker that optimizes its actions based on current and acquired new knowledge to maximize its reward. This type of online decision is prominent in many procedures of Brain-Computer…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-11-10 Frida Heskebeck , Carolina Bergeling , Bo Bernhardsson

In a multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem a gambler needs to choose at each round of play one of K arms, each characterized by an unknown reward distribution. Reward realizations are only observed when an arm is selected, and the gambler's…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-11 Omar Besbes , Yonatan Gur , Assaf Zeevi

We study an important variant of the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, which takes penalization into consideration. Instead of directly maximizing cumulative expected reward, we need to balance between the total reward and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-11-16 Guanhua Fang , Ping Li , Gennady Samorodnitsky

We consider a resource-aware variant of the classical multi-armed bandit problem: In each round, the learner selects an arm and determines a resource limit. It then observes a corresponding (random) reward, provided the (random) amount of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Viktor Bengs , Eyke Hüllermeier