Related papers: Hierarchical Bayesian Bandits
Contextual multi-armed bandits are classical models in reinforcement learning for sequential decision-making associated with individual information. A widely-used policy for bandits is Thompson Sampling, where samples from a data-driven…
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…
We consider Thompson Sampling (TS) for linear combinatorial semi-bandits and subgaussian rewards. We propose the first known TS whose finite-time regret does not scale exponentially with the dimension of the problem. We further show the…
A fundamental challenge for any intelligent system is prediction: given some inputs, can you predict corresponding outcomes? Most work on supervised learning has focused on producing accurate marginal predictions for each input. However, we…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit problem is a well-known model for studying the exploration-exploitation trade-off. It has significant possible applications in adaptive clinical trials, which allow for dynamic changes in the treatment…
This paper revisits the bandit problem in the Bayesian setting. The Bayesian approach formulates the bandit problem as an optimization problem, and the goal is to find the optimal policy which minimizes the Bayesian regret. One of the main…
Data that is gathered adaptively --- via bandit algorithms, for example --- exhibits bias. This is true both when gathering simple numeric valued data --- the empirical means kept track of by stochastic bandit algorithms are biased…
We consider a special case of bandit problems, named batched bandits, in which an agent observes batches of responses over a certain time period. Unlike previous work, we consider a more practically relevant batch-centric scenario of batch…
We revisit the classic regret-minimization problem in the stochastic multi-armed bandit setting when the arm-distributions are allowed to be heavy-tailed. Regret minimization has been well studied in simpler settings of either bounded…
Individual decision-makers consume information revealed by the previous decision makers, and produce information that may help in future decisions. This phenomenon is common in a wide range of scenarios in the Internet economy, as well as…
The Multi-Armed Bandit problem provides a fundamental framework for analyzing the tension between exploration and exploitation in sequential learning. This paper explores Information Directed Sampling (IDS) policies, a class of heuristics…
We study distributed cooperative decision-making under the explore-exploit tradeoff in the multiarmed bandit (MAB) problem. We extend the state-of-the-art frequentist and Bayesian algorithms for single-agent MAB problems to cooperative…
Stochastic linear bandits are a fundamental model for sequential decision making, where an agent selects a vector-valued action and receives a noisy reward with expected value given by an unknown linear function. Although well studied in…
Decision-makers often simultaneously face many related but heterogeneous learning problems. For instance, a large retailer may wish to learn product demand at different stores to solve pricing or inventory problems, making it desirable to…
We consider a stochastic bandit problem with countably many arms that belong to a finite set of types, each characterized by a unique mean reward. In addition, there is a fixed distribution over types which sets the proportion of each type…
We provide two distributed confidence ball algorithms for solving linear bandit problems in peer to peer networks with limited communication capabilities. For the first, we assume that all the peers are solving the same linear bandit…
Over the past few years, the multi-armed bandit model has become increasingly popular in the machine learning community, partly because of applications including online content optimization. This paper reviews two different sequential…
In the classical multi-armed bandit problem, instance-dependent algorithms attain improved performance on "easy" problems with a gap between the best and second-best arm. Are similar guarantees possible for contextual bandits? While…
Multi-Armed-Bandit frameworks have often been used by researchers to assess educational interventions, however, recent work has shown that it is more beneficial for a student to provide qualitative feedback through preference elicitation…
This paper investigates stochastic and adversarial combinatorial multi-armed bandit problems. In the stochastic setting under semi-bandit feedback, we derive a problem-specific regret lower bound, and discuss its scaling with the dimension…