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The problem of two-sided matching markets has a wide range of real-world applications and has been extensively studied in the literature. A line of recent works have focused on the problem setting where the preferences of one-side market…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-03 Fang Kong , Junming Yin , Shuai Li

In many biomedical, science, and engineering problems, one must sequentially decide which action to take next so as to maximize rewards. One general class of algorithms for optimizing interactions with the world, while simultaneously…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-05-05 Iñigo Urteaga , Chris H. Wiggins

Non-stationary multi-armed bandits (NS-MABs) model sequential decision-making problems in which the expected rewards of a set of actions, a.k.a.~arms, evolve over time. In this paper, we fill a gap in the literature by providing a novel…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-17 Marco Fiandri , Alberto Maria Metelli , Francesco Trovò

The Bayesian paradigm offers principled tools for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but its reliance on a probabilistic model for all parameters can hinder the incorporation of complex structural constraints. We introduce a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-09 Kaizheng Wang

We study the logistic bandit, in which rewards are binary with success probability $\exp(\beta a^\top \theta) / (1 + \exp(\beta a^\top \theta))$ and actions $a$ and coefficients $\theta$ are within the $d$-dimensional unit ball. While prior…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-14 Shi Dong , Tengyu Ma , Benjamin Van Roy

Thompson Sampling is one of the oldest heuristics for multi-armed bandit problems. It is a randomized algorithm based on Bayesian ideas, and has recently generated significant interest after several studies demonstrated it to have better…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-09-18 Shipra Agrawal , Navin Goyal

The computational costs of inference and planning have confined Bayesian model-based reinforcement learning to one of two dismal fates: powerful Bayes-adaptive planning but only for simplistic models, or powerful, Bayesian non-parametric…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-02-11 Arthur Guez , David Silver , Peter Dayan

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

We develop a general theory to optimize the frequentist regret for sequential learning problems, where efficient bandit and reinforcement learning algorithms can be derived from unified Bayesian principles. We propose a novel optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-12 Yunbei Xu , Assaf Zeevi

This work tackles the complexities of multi-player scenarios in \emph{unknown games}, where the primary challenge lies in navigating the uncertainty of the environment through bandit feedback alongside strategic decision-making. We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-27 Yingru Li , Liangqi Liu , Wenqiang Pu , Hao Liang , Zhi-Quan Luo

This paper studies the Bayesian regret of the Thompson Sampling algorithm for bandit problems, building on the information-theoretic framework introduced by Russo and Van Roy (2015). Specifically, it extends the rate-distortion analysis of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-05 Amaury Gouverneur , Borja Rodriguez Gálvez , Tobias Oechtering , Mikael Skoglund

The safe linear bandit problem is a version of the classical stochastic linear bandit problem where the learner's actions must satisfy an uncertain constraint at all rounds. Due its applicability to many real-world settings, this problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-13 Spencer Hutchinson , Berkay Turan , Mahnoosh Alizadeh

This note introduce three Bayesian style Multi-armed bandit algorithms: Information-directed sampling, Thompson Sampling and Generalized Thompson Sampling. The goal is to give an intuitive explanation for these three algorithms and their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-03-25 Li Zhou

In stochastic bandit problems, a Bayesian policy called Thompson sampling (TS) has recently attracted much attention for its excellent empirical performance. However, the theoretical analysis of this policy is difficult and its asymptotic…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-11-11 Junya Honda , Akimichi Takemura

Thompson sampling (TS) is one of the most popular and earliest algorithms to solve stochastic multi-armed bandit problems. We consider a variant of TS, named $\alpha$-TS, where we use a fractional or $\alpha$-posterior ($\alpha\in(0,1)$)…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-09-13 Prateek Jaiswal , Debdeep Pati , Anirban Bhattacharya , Bani K. Mallick

Non-stationary multi-armed bandit (NS-MAB) problems have recently received significant attention. NS-MAB are typically modelled in two scenarios: abruptly changing, where reward distributions remain constant for a certain period and change…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Han Qi , Yue Wang , Li Zhu

Most bandit algorithm designs are purely theoretical. Therefore, they have strong regret guarantees, but also are often too conservative in practice. In this work, we pioneer the idea of algorithm design by minimizing the empirical Bayes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-12 Chih-Wei Hsu , Branislav Kveton , Ofer Meshi , Martin Mladenov , Csaba Szepesvari

We introduce a framework for Thompson sampling (TS) contextual bandit algorithms, in which the algorithm's ability to quantify uncertainty and make decisions depends on the quality of a generative model that is learned offline. Instead of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-13 Kelly W. Zhang , Tiffany Tianhui Cai , Hongseok Namkoong , Daniel Russo

We consider stochastic multi-armed bandit problems with graph feedback, where the decision maker is allowed to observe the neighboring actions of the chosen action. We allow the graph structure to vary with time and consider both…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-10 Fang Liu , Swapna Buccapatnam , Ness Shroff

It is well known that in stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB), the sample mean of an arm is typically not an unbiased estimator of its true mean. In this paper, we decouple three different sources of this selection bias: adaptive…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-10-29 Jaehyeok Shin , Aaditya Ramdas , Alessandro Rinaldo