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Related papers: Query-Reward Tradeoffs in Multi-Armed Bandits

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We study Thompson Sampling algorithms for stochastic multi-armed bandits in the batched setting, in which we want to minimize the regret over a sequence of arm pulls using a small number of policy changes (or, batches). We propose two…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-17 Nikolai Karpov , Qin Zhang

The multi-armed bandit problems have been studied mainly under the measure of expected total reward accrued over a horizon of length $T$. In this paper, we address the issue of risk in multi-armed bandit problems and develop parallel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-08-16 Sattar Vakili , Qing Zhao

Non-stationary multi-armed bandits enable agents to adapt to changing environments by incorporating mechanisms to detect and respond to shifts in reward distributions, making them well-suited for dynamic settings. However, existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-19 Shaoang Li , Jian Li

We consider minimisation of dynamic regret in non-stationary bandits with a slowly varying property. Namely, we assume that arms' rewards are stochastic and independent over time, but that the absolute difference between the expected…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Ramakrishnan Krishnamurthy , Aditya Gopalan

In this paper, we propose a cost-aware cascading bandits model, a new variant of multi-armed ban- dits with cascading feedback, by considering the random cost of pulling arms. In each step, the learning agent chooses an ordered list of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-23 Ruida Zhou , Chao Gan , Jing Yan , Cong Shen

We provide a simple method to combine stochastic bandit algorithms. Our approach is based on a "meta-UCB" procedure that treats each of $N$ individual bandit algorithms as arms in a higher-level $N$-armed bandit problem that we solve with a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Ashok Cutkosky , Abhimanyu Das , Manish Purohit

We study a grouped bandit setting where each arm comprises multiple independent sub-arms referred to as attributes. Each attribute of each arm has an independent stochastic reward. We impose the constraint that for an arm to be deemed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-12 Sahil Dharod , Malyala Preethi Sravani , Sakshi Heda , Sharayu Moharir

Decision-making problems of sequential nature, where decisions made in the past may have an impact on the future, are used to model many practically important applications. In some real-world applications, feedback about a decision is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-02 Ronald C. van den Broek , Rik Litjens , Tobias Sagis , Luc Siecker , Nina Verbeeke , Pratik Gajane

We consider regret minimization in a general collaborative multi-agent multi-armed bandit model, in which each agent faces a finite set of arms and may communicate with other agents through a central controller. The optimal arm for each…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Amitis Shidani , Sattar Vakili

In a fixed-confidence pure exploration problem in stochastic multi-armed bandits, an algorithm iteratively samples arms and should stop as early as possible and return the correct answer to a query about the arms distributions. We are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-04 Adrienne Tuynman , Rémy Degenne

We consider the problem of best arm identification in a variant of multi-armed bandits called linked bandits. In a single interaction with linked bandits, multiple arms are played sequentially until one of them receives a positive reward.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-29 Anant Gupta

We introduce the "inverse bandit" problem of estimating the rewards of a multi-armed bandit instance from observing the learning process of a low-regret demonstrator. Existing approaches to the related problem of inverse reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-23 Wenshuo Guo , Kumar Krishna Agrawal , Aditya Grover , Vidya Muthukumar , Ashwin Pananjady

In this paper we investigate the problem of stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB) in the (local) differential privacy (DP/LDP) model. Unlike previous results that assume bounded/sub-Gaussian reward distributions, we focus on the setting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Youming Tao , Yulian Wu , Peng Zhao , Di Wang

Motivated by wireless networks where interference or channel state estimates provide partial insight into throughput, we study a variant of the classical stochastic multi-armed bandit problem in which the learner has limited access to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Arun Verma , Manjesh Kumar Hanawal , Arun Rajkumar

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…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2017-09-14 Xiaoguang Huo , Feng Fu

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-16 Deeksha Sinha , Karthik Abinav Sankararama , Abbas Kazerouni , Vashist Avadhanula

Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithms are a widely-used class of sequential algorithms for the $K$-armed bandit problem. Despite extensive research over the past decades aimed at understanding their asymptotic and (near) minimax…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-12-10 Qiyang Han , Koulik Khamaru , Cun-Hui Zhang

In this paper, we study the multi-armed bandit problem in the batched setting where the employed policy must split data into a small number of batches. While the minimax regret for the two-armed stochastic bandits has been completely…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-10-29 Zijun Gao , Yanjun Han , Zhimei Ren , Zhengqing Zhou

The objective of canonical multi-armed bandits is to identify and repeatedly select an arm with the largest reward, often in the form of the expected value of the arm's probability distribution. Such a utilitarian perspective and focus on…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-01 Meltem Tatlı , Arpan Mukherjee , Prashanth L. A. , Karthikeyan Shanmugam , Ali Tajer

We study the distribution of regret in stochastic multi-armed bandits and episodic reinforcement learning through a unified framework. We formalize a distributional regret bound as a probabilistic guarantee that holds uniformly over all…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Harin Lee , Min-hwan Oh