Related papers: Lenient Regret for Multi-Armed Bandits
The regret lower bound of Lai and Robbins (1985), the gold standard for checking optimality of bandit algorithms, considers arm size fixed as sample size goes to infinity. We show that when arm size increases polynomially with sample size,…
While significant progress has been made in designing algorithms that minimize regret in online decision-making, real-world scenarios often introduce additional complexities, perhaps the most challenging of which is missing outcomes.…
We study a variant of the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem in which the rewards are corrupted. In this framework, motivated by privacy preservation in online recommender systems, the goal is to maximize the sum of the…
In this paper, we consider a novel variant of the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, MAB with cost subsidy, which models many real-life applications where the learning agent has to pay to select an arm and is concerned about optimizing…
Conducting randomized experiments in education settings raises the question of how we can use machine learning techniques to improve educational interventions. Using Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) algorithms like Thompson Sampling (TS) in…
We study fairness within the stochastic, \emph{multi-armed bandit} (MAB) decision making framework. We adapt the fairness framework of "treating similar individuals similarly" to this setting. Here, an `individual' corresponds to an arm and…
We study the stochastic linear bandit problem with multiple arms over $T$ rounds, where the covariate dimension $d$ may exceed $T$, but each arm-specific parameter vector is $s$-sparse. We begin by analyzing the sequential estimation…
Thompson sampling has become a ubiquitous approach to online decision problems with bandit feedback. The key algorithmic task for Thompson sampling is drawing a sample from the posterior of the optimal action. We propose an alternative arm…
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…
Motivated by real-world applications that necessitate responsible experimentation, we introduce the problem of best arm identification (BAI) with minimal regret. This innovative variant of the multi-armed bandit problem elegantly…
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 consider the combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) problem, where the reward function is nonlinear. In this setting, the agent chooses a batch of arms on each round and receives feedback from each arm of the batch. The reward that the…
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem in which a set of arms is registered by each agent, and the agent receives reward when its arm is selected. An agent might strategically submit more arms with replications, which can bring more…
We study the Combinatorial Thompson Sampling policy (CTS) for combinatorial multi-armed bandit problems (CMAB), within an approximation regret setting. Although CTS has attracted a lot of interest, it has a drawback that other usual CMAB…
Restless bandit problems assume time-varying reward distributions of the arms, which adds flexibility to the model but makes the analysis more challenging. We study learning algorithms over the unknown reward distributions and prove a…
We consider model selection in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. Given a set of base learning algorithms, an effective model selection strategy adapts to the best learning algorithm in an online fashion. We show that by…
The PhD thesis of Maillard (2013) presents a rather obscure algorithm for the $K$-armed bandit problem. This less-known algorithm, which we call Maillard sampling (MS), computes the probability of choosing each arm in a \textit{closed…
This paper presents a comprehensive study on the problem of Best Arm Retention (BAR), which has recently found applications in streaming algorithms for multi-armed bandits. In the BAR problem, the goal is to retain $m$ arms with the best…
This paper introduces and addresses a wide class of stochastic bandit problems where the function mapping the arm to the corresponding reward exhibits some known structural properties. Most existing structures (e.g. linear, Lipschitz,…
We study agents communicating over an underlying network by exchanging messages, in order to optimize their individual regret in a common nonstochastic multi-armed bandit problem. We derive regret minimization algorithms that guarantee for…