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This work investigates the problem of best arm identification for multi-agent multi-armed bandits. We consider $N$ agents grouped into $M$ clusters, where each cluster solves a stochastic bandit problem. The mapping between agents and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-16 Yash , Nikhil Karamchandani , Avishek Ghosh

In the infinite-armed bandit problem, each arm's average reward is sampled from an unknown distribution, and each arm can be sampled further to obtain noisy estimates of the average reward of that arm. Prior work focuses on identifying the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-04 Yifei Wang , Tavor Baharav , Yanjun Han , Jiantao Jiao , David Tse

We study the best-arm identification problem in linear bandit, where the rewards of the arms depend linearly on an unknown parameter $\theta^*$ and the objective is to return the arm with the largest reward. We characterize the complexity…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-11-05 Marta Soare , Alessandro Lazaric , Rémi Munos

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-22 Avrim Blum , Marten Garicano , Kavya Ravichandran , Dravyansh Sharma

We consider the best arm identification problem in the stochastic multi-armed bandit framework where each arm has a tiny probability of realizing large rewards while with overwhelming probability the reward is zero. A key application of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-15 Anirban Bhattacharjee , Sushant Vijayan , Sandeep K Juneja

We consider the best arm identification (BAI) problem in the $K-$armed bandit framework with a modification - the agent is allowed to play a subset of arms at each time slot instead of one arm. Consequently, the agent observes the sample…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Siddhartha Parupudi , Gourab Ghatak

We consider the problem of the best arm identification in the presence of stochastic constraints, where there is a finite number of arms associated with multiple performance measures. The goal is to identify the arm that optimizes the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-08 Le Yang , Siyang Gao , Cheng Li , Yi Wang

We study the problem of best arm identification in linearly parameterised multi-armed bandits. Given a set of feature vectors $\mathcal{X}\subset\mathbb{R}^d,$ a confidence parameter $\delta$ and an unknown vector $\theta^*,$ the goal is to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-16 Mohammadi Zaki , Avi Mohan , Aditya Gopalan

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

We study a grouped bandit setting where each arm comprises multiple independent sub-arms referred to as attributes. Each attribute of each arm has an independent stochastic reward. We impose the constraint that for an arm to be deemed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-12 Sahil Dharod , Malyala Preethi Sravani , Sakshi Heda , Sharayu Moharir

This work establishes a new upper bound on the number of samples sufficient for PAC learning in the realizable case. The bound matches known lower bounds up to numerical constant factors. This solves a long-standing open problem on the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-09-13 Steve Hanneke

The bias of the sample means of the arms in multi-armed bandits is an important issue in adaptive data analysis that has recently received considerable attention in the literature. Existing results relate in precise ways the sign and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-02-24 Jaehyeok Shin , Aaditya Ramdas , Alessandro Rinaldo

We consider PAC-learning a good item from $k$-subsetwise feedback information sampled from a Plackett-Luce probability model, with instance-dependent sample complexity performance. In the setting where subsets of a fixed size can be tested…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-28 Aadirupa Saha , Aditya Gopalan

We consider the problem of best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit model, under fixed confidence. Given a confidence input $\delta$, the goal is to identify the arm with the highest mean reward with a probability of at least 1 --…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-12-21 El Mehdi Saad , Gilles Blanchard , Nicolas Verzelen

While the objective in traditional multi-armed bandit problems is to find the arm with the highest mean, in many settings, finding an arm that best captures information about other arms is of interest. This objective, however, requires…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-27 Vinay Praneeth Boda , Prashanth L. A

Consider the problem of finding a population or a probability distribution amongst many with the largest mean when these means are unknown but population samples can be simulated or otherwise generated. Typically, by selecting largest…

Probability · Mathematics 2018-09-11 Peter Glynn , Sandeep Juneja

The classical multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem involves a learner and a collection of K independent arms, each with its own ex ante unknown independent reward distribution. At each one of a finite number of rounds, the learner selects one…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-07 Hongda Hu , Arthur Charpentier , Mario Ghossoub , Alexander Schied

We consider a bandit problem over a graph where the rewards are not directly observed. Instead, the decision maker can compare two nodes and receive (stochastic) information pertaining to the difference in their value. The graph structure…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-09-13 Dotan Di Castro , Claudio Gentile , Shie Mannor

We consider the problem of \textit{best arm identification} with a \textit{fixed budget $T$}, in the $K$-armed stochastic bandit setting, with arms distribution defined on $[0,1]$. We prove that any bandit strategy, for at least one bandit…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-05-31 Alexandra Carpentier , Andrea Locatelli

Traditional multi-armed bandit (MAB) formulations usually make certain assumptions about the underlying arms' distributions, such as bounds on the support or their tail behaviour. Moreover, such parametric information is usually 'baked'…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-29 Anmol Kagrecha , Jayakrishnan Nair , Krishna Jagannathan