Related papers: Integrating Reward Maximization and Population Est…
We study the problem of contextual combinatorial semi-bandits, where input contexts are mapped into subsets of size $m$ of a collection of $K$ possible actions. In each round, the learner observes the realized reward of the predicted…
We present efficient algorithms for the problem of contextual bandits with i.i.d. covariates, an arbitrary sequence of rewards, and an arbitrary class of policies. Our algorithm BISTRO requires d calls to the empirical risk minimization…
Originally motivated by default risk management applications, this paper investigates a novel problem, referred to as the profitable bandit problem here. At each step, an agent chooses a subset of the K possible actions. For each action…
This work formulates model selection as an infinite-armed bandit problem, namely, a problem in which a decision maker iteratively selects one of an infinite number of fixed choices (i.e., arms) when the properties of each choice are only…
Many decision-making processes involve evaluating and then selecting items; examples include scientific peer review, job hiring, school admissions, and investment decisions. The eventual selection is performed by applying rules or…
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…
In multi-armed bandits, the tasks of reward maximization and pure exploration are often at odds with each other. The former focuses on exploiting arms with the highest means, while the latter may require constant exploration across all…
We study the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem in the presence of side-observations across actions that occur as a result of an underlying network structure. In our model, a bipartite graph captures the relationship between…
We study a nonparametric contextual bandit problem where the expected reward functions belong to a H\"older class with smoothness parameter $\beta$. We show how this interpolates between two extremes that were previously studied in…
We study contextual bandits in the presence of a stage-wise constraint when the constraint must be satisfied both with high probability and in expectation. We start with the linear case where both the reward function and the stage-wise…
This paper investigates a hitherto unaddressed aspect of best arm identification (BAI) in stochastic multi-armed bandits in the fixed-confidence setting. Two key metrics for assessing bandit algorithms are computational efficiency and…
Bandit algorithms are widely used in sequential decision problems to maximize the cumulative reward. One potential application is mobile health, where the goal is to promote the user's health through personalized interventions based on user…
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…
Conducting randomized experiments in education settings raises the question of how we can use machine learning techniques to improve educational interventions. Using Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) algorithms like Thompson Sampling (TS) in…
We study the stochastic linear bandit problem with multiple arms over $T$ rounds, where the covariate dimension $d$ may exceed $T$, but each arm-specific parameter vector is $s$-sparse. We begin by analyzing the sequential estimation…
We study contextual bandits with low-rank structure where, in each round, if the (context, arm) pair $(i,j)\in [m]\times [n]$ is selected, the learner observes a noisy sample of the $(i,j)$-th entry of an unknown low-rank reward matrix.…
Modifying the reward-biased maximum likelihood method originally proposed in the adaptive control literature, we propose novel learning algorithms to handle the explore-exploit trade-off in linear bandits problems as well as generalized…
Satisficing is a relaxation of maximizing and allows for less risky decision making in the face of uncertainty. We propose two sets of satisficing objectives for the multi-armed bandit problem, where the objective is to achieve reward-based…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a common model for sequential decision problems. In the standard setup, a decision maker has to choose at every instant between several competing arms, each of them provides a scalar random…
In linear contextual bandits, the objective is to select actions that maximize cumulative rewards, modeled as a linear function with unknown parameters. Although Thompson Sampling performs well empirically, it does not achieve optimal…