Related papers: Learning to Rank in the Position Based Model with …
We introduce a multi-armed bandit model where the reward is a sum of multiple random variables, and each action only alters the distributions of some of them. After each action, the agent observes the realizations of all the variables. This…
Training Learning-to-Rank models for e-commerce product search ranking can be challenging due to the lack of a gold standard of ranking relevance. In this paper, we decompose ranking relevance into content-based and engagement-based…
E-commerce sites strive to provide users the most timely relevant information in order to reduce shopping frictions and increase customer satisfaction. Multi armed bandit models (MAB) as a type of adaptive optimization algorithms provide…
Learning to rank with implicit feedback is one of the most important tasks in many real-world information systems where the objective is some specific utility, e.g., clicks and revenue. However, we point out that existing methods based on…
Traditional online learning models are typically initialized from scratch. By contrast, contemporary real-world applications often have access to historical datasets that can potentially enhanced the online learning processes. We study how…
We investigate the recently introduced model of learning with improvements, where agents are allowed to make small changes to their feature values to be warranted a more desirable label. We extensively extend previously published results by…
The contextual bandit has been identified as a powerful framework to formulate the recommendation process as a sequential decision-making process, where each item is regarded as an arm and the objective is to minimize the regret of $T$…
Bandit algorithms are widely used in sequential decision problems to maximize the cumulative reward. One potential application is mobile health, where the goal is to promote the user's health through personalized interventions based on user…
The deployment of Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) has become commonplace in many economic applications. However, regret guarantees for even state-of-the-art linear bandit algorithms (such as Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty Linear bandit…
Contextual multi-armed bandit problems arise frequently in important industrial applications. Existing solutions model the context either linearly, which enables uncertainty driven (principled) exploration, or non-linearly, by using…
We investigate the feasibility of learning from a mix of both fully-labeled supervised data and contextual bandit data. We specifically consider settings in which the underlying learning signal may be different between these two data…
The rise of large-scale pretrained models has made it feasible to generate predictive or synthetic features at low cost, raising the question of how to incorporate such surrogate predictions into downstream decision-making. We study this…
We address the problem of online sequential decision making, i.e., balancing the trade-off between exploiting the current knowledge to maximize immediate performance and exploring the new information to gain long-term benefits using the…
We develop a learning principle and an efficient algorithm for batch learning from logged bandit feedback. This learning setting is ubiquitous in online systems (e.g., ad placement, web search, recommendation), where an algorithm makes a…
Recommendation systems are a vital component of many online marketplaces, where there are often millions of items to potentially present to users who have a wide variety of wants or needs. Evaluating recommender system algorithms is a hard…
Optimization is commonly employed to determine the content of web pages, such as to maximize conversions on landing pages or click-through rates on search engine result pages. Often the layout of these pages can be decoupled into several…
In designing personalized ranking algorithms, it is desirable to encourage a high precision at the top of the ranked list. Existing methods either seek a smooth convex surrogate for a non-smooth ranking metric or directly modify updating…
We propose a new sequential decision-making setting, combining key aspects of two established online learning problems with bandit feedback. The optimal action to play at any given moment is contingent on an underlying changing state which…
Effective solving of constraint problems often requires choosing good or specific search heuristics. However, choosing or designing a good search heuristic is non-trivial and is often a manual process. In this paper, rather than manually…
In this paper we consider an online recommendation setting, where a platform recommends a sequence of items to its users at every time period. The users respond by selecting one of the items recommended or abandon the platform due to…