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We analyze the $K$-armed bandit problem where the reward for each arm is a noisy realization based on an observed context under mild nonparametric assumptions. We attain tight results for top-arm identification and a sublinear regret of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-01-08 Melody Y. Guan , Heinrich Jiang

We study the adversarial kernel bandit problem, in which the loss at each round is induced by an arbitrary bounded element of a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). We propose an exponential-weights algorithm built on a regularized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Yu-Jie Zhang , Hao Qiu , Jonathan Scarlett , Kevin Jamieson

There are two variants of the classical multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem that have received considerable attention from machine learning researchers in recent years: contextual bandits and simple regret minimization. Contextual bandits are…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-02-27 Aniket Anand Deshmukh , Srinagesh Sharma , James W. Cutler , Mark Moldwin , Clayton Scott

We present the first high-probability optimal regret bound for a policy optimization technique applied to the problem of stochastic contextual multi-armed bandit (CMAB) with general offline function approximation. Our algorithm is both…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Orin Levy , Yishay Mansour

Past research on interactive decision making problems (bandits, reinforcement learning, etc.) mostly focuses on the minimax regret that measures the algorithm's performance on the hardest instance. However, an ideal algorithm should adapt…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-13 Kefan Dong , Tengyu Ma

The statistical framework of Generalized Linear Models (GLM) can be applied to sequential problems involving categorical or ordinal rewards associated, for instance, with clicks, likes or ratings. In the example of binary rewards, logistic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-24 Yoan Russac , Olivier Cappé , Aurélien Garivier

Standard approaches to decision-making under uncertainty focus on sequential exploration of the space of decisions. However, \textit{simultaneously} proposing a batch of decisions, which leverages available resources for parallel…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-07 Jeffrey Chan , Aldo Pacchiano , Nilesh Tripuraneni , Yun S. Song , Peter Bartlett , Michael I. Jordan

Machine learning algorithms are often repeatedly applied to problems with similar structure over and over again. We focus on solving a sequence of bandit optimization tasks and develop LIBO, an algorithm which adapts to the environment by…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-06-21 Felix Schur , Parnian Kassraie , Jonas Rothfuss , Andreas Krause

Modern systems, such as digital platforms and service systems, increasingly rely on contextual bandits for online decision-making; however, their deployment can inadvertently create unfair exposure among arms, undermining long-term platform…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-05 Qingwen Zhang , Wenjia Wang

As the adoption of federated learning increases for learning from sensitive data local to user devices, it is natural to ask if the learning can be done using implicit signals generated as users interact with the applications of interest,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-21 Alekh Agarwal , H. Brendan McMahan , Zheng Xu

We study the Logistic Contextual Slate Bandit problem, where, at each round, an agent selects a slate of $N$ items from an exponentially large set (of size $2^{\Omega(N)}$) of candidate slates provided by the environment. A single binary…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Tanmay Goyal , Gaurav Sinha

In this work, we investigate the problem of adapting to the presence or absence of causal structure in multi-armed bandit problems. In addition to the usual reward signal, we assume the learner has access to additional variables, observed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-02 Ziyi Liu , Idan Attias , Daniel M. Roy

We consider a novel variant of the contextual bandit problem (i.e., the multi-armed bandit with side-information, or context, available to a decision-maker) where the context used at each decision may be corrupted ("useless context"). This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-30 Djallel Bouneffouf

Recent advances in learning techniques have garnered attention for their applicability to a diverse range of real-world sequential decision-making problems. Yet, many practical applications have critical constraints for operation in real…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-06 Jose A. Ayala-Romero , Andres Garcia-Saavedra , Xavier Costa-Perez

Recurrent neural networks have proven effective in modeling sequential user feedbacks for recommender systems. However, they usually focus solely on item relevance and fail to effectively explore diverse items for users, therefore harming…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-17 Hao Wang , Yifei Ma , Hao Ding , Yuyang Wang

Despite the significant interest and progress in reinforcement learning (RL) problems with adversarial corruption, current works are either confined to the linear setting or lead to an undesired $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T}\zeta)$ regret bound,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-02-13 Chenlu Ye , Wei Xiong , Quanquan Gu , Tong Zhang

Model misspecification is a major consideration in applications of statistical methods and machine learning. However, it is often neglected in contextual bandits. This paper studies a common form of misspecification, an inter-arm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-27 Rong Zhu , Branislav Kveton

A contextual bandit problem is studied in a highly non-stationary environment, which is ubiquitous in various recommender systems due to the time-varying interests of users. Two models with disjoint and hybrid payoffs are considered to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-03 Xiao Xu , Fang Dong , Yanghua Li , Shaojian He , Xin Li

We study linear contextual bandits under adversarial corruption and heavy-tailed noise with finite $(1+\epsilon)$-th moments for some $\epsilon \in (0,1]$. Existing work that addresses both adversarial corruption and heavy-tailed noise…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Naoto Tani , Futoshi Futami

Balancing exploration and exploitation (EE) is a fundamental problem in contex-tual bandit. One powerful principle for EE trade-off isOptimism in Face of Uncer-tainty(OFU), in which the agent takes the action according to an upper…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-30 Yichi Zhou , Shihong Song , Huishuai Zhang , Jun Zhu , Wei Chen , Tie-Yan Liu