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The Whittle index, which characterizes optimal policies for controlling certain single restless bandit projects (a Markov decision process with two actions: active and passive) is the basis for a widely used heuristic index policy for the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-05 José Niño-Mora

Algorithms for the Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem play a central role in sequential decision-making and have been extensively explored both theoretically and numerically. While most classical approaches aim to identify the arm with the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-02 Gabriel Turinici

We propose Streaming Bandits, a Restless Multi Armed Bandit (RMAB) framework in which heterogeneous arms may arrive and leave the system after staying on for a finite lifetime. Streaming Bandits naturally capture the health intervention…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-17 Aditya Mate , Arpita Biswas , Christoph Siebenbrunner , Susobhan Ghosh , Milind Tambe

Multi-armed bandits (MAB) model sequential decision making problems, in which a learner sequentially chooses arms with unknown reward distributions in order to maximize its cumulative reward. Most of the prior work on MAB assumes that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-22 Onur Atan , Cem Tekin , Mihaela van der Schaar

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are widely used to sample from complicated distributions, especially to sample from the posterior distribution in Bayesian inference. However, MCMC is not directly applicable when facing the doubly…

Computation · Statistics 2019-03-29 Guanyang Wang

The problem of rested and restless multi-armed bandits with constrained availability of arms is considered. The states of arms evolve in Markovian manner and the exact states are hidden from the decision maker. First, some structural…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-10-20 Varun Mehta , Rahul Meshram , Kesav Kaza , S. N. Merchant

This paper focuses on the information freshness of finite-state Markov sources, using the uncertainty of information (UoI) as the performance metric. Measured by Shannon's entropy, UoI can capture not only the transition dynamics of the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2023-04-25 Gongpu Chen , Soung Chang Liew

High-content screening microscopy generates large amounts of live-cell imaging data, yet its potential remains constrained by the inability to determine when and where to image most effectively. Optimally balancing acquisition time,…

Applications · Statistics 2025-12-18 Jaume Anguera Peris , Songtao Cheng , Hanzhao Zhang , Wei Ouyang , Joakim Jaldén

The restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) framework is a popular approach to solving resource allocation problems in networked systems. In this paper, we study optimal resource allocation in RMABs facing unknown and non-stationary dynamics.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-22 Md Kamran Chowdhury Shisher , Vishrant Tripathi , Mung Chiang , Christopher G. Brinton

Restless Multi-Armed Bandits (RMAB) is an apt model to represent decision-making problems in public health interventions (e.g., tuberculosis, maternal, and child care), anti-poaching planning, sensor monitoring, personalized recommendations…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-28 Dexun Li , Pradeep Varakantham

The Whittle index, which characterizes optimal policies for controlling certain single restless bandit projects (a Markov decision process with two actions: active and passive) is the basis for a widely used heuristic index policy for the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-06 José Niño-Mora

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMABs) have been widely utilized to address resource allocation problems with Markov reward processes (MRPs). Existing works often assume that the dynamics of MRPs are known prior, which makes the RMAB problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-13 Jingwen Tong , Xinran Li , Liqun Fu , Jun Zhang , Khaled B. Letaief

This brief paper presents simple simulation-based algorithms for obtaining an approximately optimal policy in a given finite set in large finite constrained Markov decision processes. The algorithms are adapted from playing strategies for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-12-17 Hyeong Soo Chang

In many public health settings, it is important for patients to adhere to health programs, such as taking medications and periodic health checks. Unfortunately, beneficiaries may gradually disengage from such programs, which is detrimental…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-26 Arpita Biswas , Gaurav Aggarwal , Pradeep Varakantham , Milind Tambe

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMAB) play a central role in modeling sequential decision making problems under an instantaneous activation constraint that at most B arms can be activated at any decision epoch. Each restless arm is endowed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-03 Guojun Xiong , Jian Li

We consider the query recommendation problem in closed loop interactive learning settings like online information gathering and exploratory analytics. The problem can be naturally modelled using the Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework with…

We consider the restless Markov bandit problem, in which the state of each arm evolves according to a Markov process independently of the learner's actions. We suggest an algorithm that after $T$ steps achieves $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-10-23 Ronald Ortner , Daniil Ryabko , Peter Auer , Rémi Munos

We introduce Flickering Multi-Armed Bandits (FMAB) to model sequential decision-making in environments with changing action availability, where accessibility of the next action is restricted to a subset dependent on the agent's current…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Sourav Chakraborty , Amit Kiran Rege , Claire Monteleoni , Lijun Chen

Restless multi-arm bandits (RMABs), a class of resource allocation problems with broad application in areas such as healthcare, online advertising, and anti-poaching, have recently been studied from a multi-agent reinforcement learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-31 Yunfan Zhao , Nikhil Behari , Edward Hughes , Edwin Zhang , Dheeraj Nagaraj , Karl Tuyls , Aparna Taneja , Milind Tambe

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMABs) are a popular framework for algorithmic decision making in sequential settings with limited resources. RMABs are increasingly being used for sensitive decisions such as in public health, treatment…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-22 Jackson A. Killian , Manish Jain , Yugang Jia , Jonathan Amar , Erich Huang , Milind Tambe