Related papers: Indexability and Rollout Policy for Multi-State Pa…
In this paper, we introduce the notion of replicable policies in the context of stochastic bandits, one of the canonical problems in interactive learning. A policy in the bandit environment is called replicable if it pulls, with high…
The restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) framework is a popular model with applications across a wide variety of fields. However, its solution is hindered by the exponentially growing state space (with respect to the number of arms) and the…
Restless bandits are a class of sequential resource allocation problems concerned with allocating one or more resources among several alternative processes where the evolution of the process depends on the resource allocated to them. Such…
The multi-armed restless bandit framework allows to model a wide variety of decision-making problems in areas as diverse as industrial engineering, computer communication, operations research, financial engineering, communication networks…
Reinforcement learning is an attractive approach to learn good resource allocation and scheduling policies based on data when the system model is unknown. However, the cumulative regret of most RL algorithms scales as $\tilde O(\mathsf{S}…
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…
Over the last decade, the Age of Information has emerged as a key concept and metric for applications where the freshness of sensor-provided data is critical. Limited transmission capacity has motivated research on the design of tractable…
This paper introduces a novel multi-armed bandits framework, termed Contextual Restless Bandits (CRB), for complex online decision-making. This CRB framework incorporates the core features of contextual bandits and restless bandits, so that…
In this paper a spectrum sensing policy employing recency-based exploration is proposed for cognitive radio networks. We formulate the problem of finding a spectrum sensing policy for multi-band dynamic spectrum access as a stochastic…
Restless bandit problems are instances of non-stationary multi-armed bandits. These problems have been studied well from the optimization perspective, where the goal is to efficiently find a near-optimal policy when system parameters are…
We extend Bayesian multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms beyond their original setting by making use of sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods. A MAB is a sequential decision making problem where the goal is to learn a policy that maximizes…
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…
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…
We consider a restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) in which there are two types of arms, say A and B. Each arm can be in one of two states, say $0$ or $1.$ Playing a type A arm brings it to state $0$ with probability one and not playing it…
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…
This paper develops a polyhedral approach to the design, analysis, and computation of dynamic allocation indices for scheduling binary-action (engage/rest) Markovian stochastic projects which can change state when rested (restless bandits…
We consider the restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem with unknown dynamics in which a player chooses M out of N arms to play at each time. The reward state of each arm transits according to an unknown Markovian rule when it is played…
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…
In this paper we study the online learning problem involving rested and restless multiarmed bandits with multiple plays. The system consists of a single player/user and a set of K finite-state discrete-time Markov chains (arms) with unknown…
This paper surveys recent work by the author on the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of restless bandit indexation as well as on its application to a variety of problems involving the dynamic allocation of priority to multiple stochastic…