Related papers: Sequential Multi-hypothesis Testing in Multi-armed…
In fixed budget bandit identification, an algorithm sequentially observes samples from several distributions up to a given final time. It then answers a query about the set of distributions. A good algorithm will have a small probability of…
In the multiarmed bandit problem a gambler chooses an arm of a slot machine to pull considering a tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. We study the stochastic bandit problem where each arm has a reward distribution supported in a…
We consider the problem of maximizing the expected average reward obtained over an infinite time horizon by $n$ weakly coupled Markov decision processes. Our setup is a substantial generalization of the multi-armed restless bandit problem…
In bandit best-arm identification, an algorithm is tasked with finding the arm with highest mean reward with a specified accuracy as fast as possible. We study multi-fidelity best-arm identification, in which the algorithm can choose to…
We consider a replicable stochastic multi-armed bandit algorithm that ensures, with high probability, that the algorithm's sequence of actions is not affected by the randomness inherent in the dataset. Replicability allows third parties to…
We study the non-contextual multi-armed bandit problem in a transfer learning setting: before any pulls, the learner is given N'_k i.i.d. samples from each source distribution nu'_k, and the true target distributions nu_k lie within a known…
A key feature of sequential decision making under uncertainty is a need to balance between exploiting--choosing the best action according to the current knowledge, and exploring--obtaining information about values of other actions. The…
The multi-armed bandit (MAB) model is one of the most classical models to study decision-making in an uncertain environment. In this model, a player chooses one of $K$ possible arms of a bandit machine to play at each time step, where the…
In this paper, we study the problem of estimating uniformly well the mean values of several distributions given a finite budget of samples. If the variance of the distributions were known, one could design an optimal sampling strategy by…
Modern platforms leverage randomized experiments to make informed decisions from a given set of items (``treatments''). As a particularly challenging scenario, these items may (i) arrive in high volume, with thousands of new items being…
Multi armed bandit (MAB) algorithms have been increasingly used to complement or integrate with A/B tests and randomized clinical trials in e-commerce, healthcare, and policymaking. Recent developments incorporate possible delayed feedback.…
The trade-off between the cost of acquiring and processing data, and uncertainty due to a lack of data is fundamental in machine learning. A basic instance of this trade-off is the problem of deciding when to make noisy and costly…
We consider a restless multi-armed bandit in which each arm can be in one of two states. When an arm is sampled, the state of the arm is not available to the sampler. Instead, a binary signal with a known randomness that depends on the…
In this paper we consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for uncontrolled restless bandit problems. In an uncontrolled restless bandit problem, there is a finite set of arms, each of which when pulled yields a positive reward.…
Sequential portfolio selection has attracted increasing interests in the machine learning and quantitative finance communities in recent years. As a mathematical framework for reinforcement learning policies, the stochastic multi-armed…
Multi-armed bandits are widely applied in scenarios like recommender systems, for which the goal is to maximize the click rate. However, more factors should be considered, e.g., user stickiness, user growth rate, user experience assessment,…
This paper studies active learning in the context of robust statistics. Specifically, we propose a variant of the Best Arm Identification problem for \emph{contaminated bandits}, where each arm pull has probability $\varepsilon$ of…
A new model for controlled sensing for multihypothesis testing is proposed and studied in the sequential setting. This new model, termed {\em controlled Markovian observation} model, exhibits a more complicated memory structure in the…
Stochastic multi-armed bandits are a sequential-decision-making framework, where, at each interaction step, the learner selects an arm and observes a stochastic reward. Within the context of best-arm identification (BAI) problems, the goal…
Active learning methods have shown great promise in reducing the number of samples necessary for learning. As automated learning systems are adopted into real-time, real-world decision-making pipelines, it is increasingly important that…