Related papers: Efficient First-Order Contextual Bandits: Predicti…
The analysis of online least squares estimation is at the heart of many stochastic sequential decision making problems. We employ tools from the self-normalized processes to provide a simple and self-contained proof of a tail bound of a…
In the fixed budget thresholding bandit problem, an algorithm sequentially allocates a budgeted number of samples to different distributions. It then predicts whether the mean of each distribution is larger or lower than a given threshold.…
We study a variant of causal contextual bandits where the context is chosen based on an initial intervention chosen by the learner. At the beginning of each round, the learner selects an initial action, depending on which a stochastic…
Key challenges in running a retail business include how to select products to present to consumers (the assortment problem), and how to price products (the pricing problem) to maximize revenue or profit. Instead of considering these…
We study the contextual continuum bandits problem, where the learner sequentially receives a side information vector and has to choose an action in a convex set, minimizing a function associated with the context. The goal is to minimize all…
We prove an instance independent (poly) logarithmic regret for stochastic contextual bandits with linear payoff. Previously, in \cite{chu2011contextual}, a lower bound of $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$ is shown for the contextual linear bandit…
The primary goal of my Ph.D. study is to develop provably efficient and practical algorithms for data-driven sequential decision-making under uncertainty. My work focuses on reinforcement learning (RL), multi-armed bandits, and their…
In a multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, an online algorithm makes a sequence of choices. In each round it chooses from a time-invariant set of alternatives and receives the payoff associated with this alternative. While the case of small…
In this paper, we prove that Distributional Reinforcement Learning (DistRL), which learns the return distribution, can obtain second-order bounds in both online and offline RL in general settings with function approximation. Second-order…
We introduce a stochastic contextual bandit model where at each time step the environment chooses a distribution over a context set and samples the context from this distribution. The learner observes only the context distribution while the…
We consider the problem of learning to choose actions using contextual information when provided with limited feedback in the form of relative pairwise comparisons. We study this problem in the dueling-bandits framework of Yue et al.…
We study stage-wise conservative linear stochastic bandits: an instance of bandit optimization, which accounts for (unknown) safety constraints that appear in applications such as online advertising and medical trials. At each stage, the…
Bandit algorithms sequentially accumulate data using adaptive sampling policies, offering flexibility for real-world applications. However, excessive sampling can be costly, motivating the devolopment of early stopping methods and reliable…
We study a novel setting in offline reinforcement learning (RL) where a number of distributed machines jointly cooperate to solve the problem but only one single round of communication is allowed and there is a budget constraint on the…
Multi-armed bandit algorithms have become a reference solution for handling the explore/exploit dilemma in recommender systems, and many other important real-world problems, such as display advertisement. However, such algorithms usually…
We study the problem of online learning in adversarial bandit problems under a partial observability model called off-policy feedback. In this sequential decision making problem, the learner cannot directly observe its rewards, but instead…
Contextual multinomial logit (MNL) bandits capture many real-world assortment recommendation problems such as online retailing/advertising. However, prior work has only considered (generalized) linear value functions, which greatly limits…
We study the offline contextual bandit problem, where we aim to acquire an optimal policy using observational data. However, this data usually contains two deficiencies: (i) some variables that confound actions are not observed, and (ii)…
A latent bandit problem is one in which the learning agent knows the arm reward distributions conditioned on an unknown discrete latent state. The primary goal of the agent is to identify the latent state, after which it can act optimally.…
We present improved algorithms with worst-case regret guarantees for the stochastic linear bandit problem. The widely used "optimism in the face of uncertainty" principle reduces a stochastic bandit problem to the construction of a…