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Related papers: Combinatorial Pure Exploration with Full-Bandit or…

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We consider online learning problems under a partial observability model capturing situations where the information conveyed to the learner is between full information and bandit feedback. In the simplest variant, we assume that in addition…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Tomas Kocak , Gergely Neu , Michal Valko , Remi Munos

How should a firm allocate its limited interviewing resources to select the optimal cohort of new employees from a large set of job applicants? How should that firm allocate cheap but noisy resume screenings and expensive but in-depth…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-03-15 Candice Schumann , Samsara N. Counts , Jeffrey S. Foster , John P. Dickerson

This paper introduces the \emph{confounded pure exploration transductive linear bandit} (\texttt{CPET-LB}) problem. As a motivating example, often online services cannot directly assign users to specific control or treatment experiences…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-18 Yao Zhao , Kwang-Sung Jun , Tanner Fiez , Lalit Jain

We describe MELEE, a meta-learning algorithm for learning a good exploration policy in the interactive contextual bandit setting. Here, an algorithm must take actions based on contexts, and learn based only on a reward signal from the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-25 Amr Sharaf , Hal Daumé

In several realistic situations, an interactive learning agent can practice and refine its strategy before going on to be evaluated. For instance, consider a student preparing for a series of tests. She would typically take a few practice…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-08 Sudeep Raja Putta , Theja Tulabandhula

We study the combinatorial pure exploration problem Best-Set in stochastic multi-armed bandits. In a Best-Set instance, we are given $n$ arms with unknown reward distributions, as well as a family $\mathcal{F}$ of feasible subsets over the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-06 Lijie Chen , Anupam Gupta , Jian Li , Mingda Qiao , Ruosong Wang

Pure exploration (aka active testing) is the fundamental task of sequentially gathering information to answer a query about a stochastic environment. Good algorithms make few mistakes and take few samples. Lower bounds (for multi-armed…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-26 Rémy Degenne , Wouter M. Koolen , Pierre Ménard

We study the problem active sequential hypothesis testing, also known as pure exploration: given a new task, the learner adaptively collects data from the environment to efficiently determine an underlying correct hypothesis. A classical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Alessio Russo , Ryan Welch , Aldo Pacchiano

Despite the great interest in the bandit problem, designing efficient algorithms for complex models remains challenging, as there is typically no analytical way to quantify uncertainty. In this paper, we propose Multiplier Bootstrap-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-06 Runzhe Wan , Haoyu Wei , Branislav Kveton , Rui Song

In this paper, we investigate the problem of offline Preference-based Reinforcement Learning (PbRL) with human feedback where feedback is available in the form of preference between trajectory pairs rather than explicit rewards. Our…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-03 Wenhao Zhan , Masatoshi Uehara , Nathan Kallus , Jason D. Lee , Wen Sun

Motivated by problems in search and detection we present a solution to a Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit (CMAB) problem with both heavy-tailed reward distributions and a new class of feedback, filtered semibandit feedback. In a CMAB…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-05-29 James A. Grant , David S. Leslie , Kevin Glazebrook , Roberto Szechtman

Reward-free exploration is a reinforcement learning setting studied by Jin et al. (2020), who address it by running several algorithms with regret guarantees in parallel. In our work, we instead give a more natural adaptive approach for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-08 Emilie Kaufmann , Pierre Ménard , Omar Darwiche Domingues , Anders Jonsson , Edouard Leurent , Michal Valko

Exogenous MDPs (Exo-MDPs) capture sequential decision-making where uncertainty comes solely from exogenous inputs that evolve independently of the learner's actions. This structure is especially common in operations research applications…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-29 Hao Liang , Jiayu Cheng , Sean R. Sinclair , Yali Du

In this paper, we study a family of conservative bandit problems (CBPs) with sample-path reward constraints, i.e., the learner's reward performance must be at least as well as a given baseline at any time. We propose a One-Size-Fits-All…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-08 Yihan Du , Siwei Wang , Longbo Huang

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a promising approach for robotic navigation, allowing robots to learn through trial and error. However, real-world robotic tasks often suffer from sparse rewards, leading to inefficient exploration and…

In this paper, we consider combinatorial reinforcement learning with preference feedback, where a learning agent sequentially offers an action--an assortment of multiple items to--a user, whose preference feedback follows a multinomial…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-06 Joongkyu Lee , Min-hwan Oh

Multi-objective combinatorial optimization seeks Pareto-optimal solutions over exponentially large discrete spaces, yet existing methods sacrifice generality, scalability, or theoretical guarantees. We reformulate it as an online learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Esha Singh , Dongxia Wu , Chien-Yi Yang , Tajana Rosing , Rose Yu , Yi-An Ma

We study the piecewise stationary combinatorial semi-bandit problem with causally related rewards. In our nonstationary environment, variations in the base arms' distributions, causal relationships between rewards, or both, change the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-27 Behzad Nourani-Koliji , Steven Bilaj , Amir Rezaei Balef , Setareh Maghsudi

This work focuses on the fulfillment of the Persistent Excitation (PE) condition for signals which result from transformations by means of polynomials. This is essential e.g. for the convergence of Adaptive Dynamic Programming algorithms…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-21 Philipp Karg , Florian Köpf , Christian A. Braun , Sören Hohmann

Reinforcement learning (RL) has achieved promising results on most robotic control tasks. Safety of learning-based controllers is an essential notion of ensuring the effectiveness of the controllers. Current methods adopt whole consistency…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-07-31 Haotian Xu , Shengjie Wang , Zhaolei Wang , Yunzhe Zhang , Qing Zhuo , Yang Gao , Tao Zhang