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Stochastic rising rested bandit (SRRB) is a setting where the arms' expected rewards increase as they are pulled. It models scenarios in which the performances of the different options grow as an effect of an underlying learning process…
We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…
Reinforcement learning studies how to balance exploration and exploitation in real-world systems, optimizing interactions with the world while simultaneously learning how the world operates. One general class of algorithms for such learning…
Many real-world bandit applications are characterized by sparse rewards, which can significantly hinder learning efficiency. Leveraging problem-specific structures for careful distribution modeling is recognized as essential for improving…
Inspired by the Reward-Biased Maximum Likelihood Estimate method of adaptive control, we propose RBMLE -- a novel family of learning algorithms for stochastic multi-armed bandits (SMABs). For a broad range of SMABs including both the…
We investigate the problem of unconstrained combinatorial multi-armed bandits with full-bandit feedback and stochastic rewards for submodular maximization. Previous works investigate the same problem assuming a submodular and monotone…
The multi-armed bandit formalism has been extensively studied under various attack models, in which an adversary can modify the reward revealed to the player. Previous studies focused on scenarios where the attack value either is bounded at…
Boltzmann exploration is widely used in reinforcement learning to provide a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Recently, in (Cesa-Bianchi et al., 2017) it has been shown that pure Boltzmann exploration does not perform well…
Reward-biased maximum likelihood estimation (RBMLE) is a classic principle in the adaptive control literature for tackling explore-exploit trade-offs. This paper studies the stochastic contextual bandit problem with general bounded reward…
We study a specific \textit{combinatorial pure exploration stochastic bandit problem} where the learner aims at finding the set of arms whose means are above a given threshold, up to a given precision, and \textit{for a fixed time horizon}.…
In this paper, we propose a Thompson Sampling algorithm for \emph{unimodal} bandits, where the expected reward is unimodal over the partially ordered arms. To exploit the unimodal structure better, at each step, instead of exploration from…
We study a time-varying Bayesian optimization problem with bandit feedback, where the reward function belongs to a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS). We approach the problem via an upper-confidence bound Gaussian Process algorithm,…
We propose an algorithm for non-stationary kernel bandits that does not require prior knowledge of the degree of non-stationarity. The algorithm follows randomized strategies obtained by solving optimization problems that balance…
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…
In the contextual linear bandit setting, algorithms built on the optimism principle fail to exploit the structure of the problem and have been shown to be asymptotically suboptimal. In this paper, we follow recent approaches of deriving…
We present improved algorithms with worst-case regret guarantees for the stochastic linear bandit problem. The widely used "optimism in the face of uncertainty" principle reduces a stochastic bandit problem to the construction of a…
We study incentivized exploration for the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem with non-stationary reward distributions, where players receive compensation for exploring arms other than the greedy choice and may provide biased feedback on the…
Optimal regret bounds for Multi-Armed Bandit problems are now well documented. They can be classified into two categories based on the growth rate with respect to the time horizon $T$: (i) small, distribution-dependent, bounds of order of…
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…
In a typical stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, the objective is often to maximize the expected sum of rewards over some time horizon $T$. While the choice of a strategy that accomplishes that is optimal with no additional information,…