Related papers: Gaussian One-Armed Bandit and Optimization of Batc…
When comparing the performance of multi-armed bandit algorithms, the potential impact of missing data is often overlooked. In practice, it also affects their implementation where the simplest approach to overcome this is to continue to…
Bayesian optimization is a framework for global search via maximum a posteriori updates rather than simulated annealing, and has gained prominence for decision-making under uncertainty. In this work, we cast Bayesian optimization as a…
This paper proposes near-optimal algorithms for the pure-exploration linear bandit problem in the fixed confidence and fixed budget settings. Leveraging ideas from the theory of suprema of empirical processes, we provide an algorithm whose…
The Greedy algorithm is the simplest heuristic in sequential decision problem that carelessly takes the locally optimal choice at each round, disregarding any advantages of exploring and/or information gathering. Theoretically, it is known…
Consider a multi-phase project management problem where the decision maker needs to deal with two issues: (a) how to allocate resources to projects within each phase, and (b) when to enter the next phase, so that the total expected reward…
The improving multi-armed bandits problem is a formal model for allocating effort under uncertainty, motivated by scenarios such as investing research effort into new technologies, performing clinical trials, and hyperparameter selection…
We study the stochastic linear bandit problem with multiple arms over $T$ rounds, where the covariate dimension $d$ may exceed $T$, but each arm-specific parameter vector is $s$-sparse. We begin by analyzing the sequential estimation…
We address the problem of finding the maximizer of a nonlinear smooth function, that can only be evaluated point-wise, subject to constraints on the number of permitted function evaluations. This problem is also known as fixed-budget best…
We revisit the classic regret-minimization problem in the stochastic multi-armed bandit setting when the arm-distributions are allowed to be heavy-tailed. Regret minimization has been well studied in simpler settings of either bounded…
This work deals with parallel optimization of expensive objective functions which are modeled as sample realizations of Gaussian processes. The study is formalized as a Bayesian optimization problem, or continuous multi-armed bandit…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit problem is well understood when the reward distributions are sub-Gaussian. In this paper we examine the bandit problem under the weaker assumption that the distributions have moments of order 1+\epsilon,…
In this paper, we consider several finite-horizon Bayesian multi-armed bandit problems with side constraints which are computationally intractable (NP-Hard) and for which no optimal (or near optimal) algorithms are known to exist with…
We study the recovering bandits problem, a variant of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem where the expected reward of each arm varies according to some unknown function of the time since the arm was last played. While being a natural…
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…
We consider the continuum-armed bandits problem, under a novel setting of recommending the best arms within a fixed budget under aggregated feedback. This is motivated by applications where the precise rewards are impossible or expensive to…
Recently multi-armed bandit problem arises in many real-life scenarios where arms must be sampled in batches, due to limited time the agent can wait for the feedback. Such applications include biological experimentation and online…
In a fixed-confidence pure exploration problem in stochastic multi-armed bandits, an algorithm iteratively samples arms and should stop as early as possible and return the correct answer to a query about the arms distributions. We are…
We introduce a novel variant of the multi-armed bandit problem, in which bandits are streamed one at a time to the player, and at each point, the player can either choose to pull the current bandit or move on to the next bandit. Once a…
Multi-armed bandit problems (MABPs) are a special type of optimal control problem well suited to model resource allocation under uncertainty in a wide variety of contexts. Since the first publication of the optimal solution of the classic…
We study a structured variant of the multi-armed bandit problem specified by a set of Bernoulli distributions $ \nu \!= \!(\nu\_{a,b})\_{a \in \mathcal{A}, b \in \mathcal{B}}$ with means $(\mu\_{a,b})\_{a \in \mathcal{A}, b \in…