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Contextual bandit learning is a reinforcement learning problem where the learner repeatedly receives a set of features (context), takes an action and receives a reward based on the action and context. We consider this problem under a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-03-05 Alekh Agarwal , Miroslav Dudík , Satyen Kale , John Langford , Robert E. Schapire

Autonomous robot-assisted feeding requires the ability to acquire a wide variety of food items. However, it is impossible for such a system to be trained on all types of food in existence. Therefore, a key challenge is choosing a…

Bandit learning is characterized by the tension between long-term exploration and short-term exploitation. However, as has recently been noted, in settings in which the choices of the learning algorithm correspond to important decisions…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-01-11 Sampath Kannan , Jamie Morgenstern , Aaron Roth , Bo Waggoner , Zhiwei Steven Wu

Determining what experience to generate to best facilitate learning (i.e. exploration) is one of the distinguishing features and open challenges in reinforcement learning. The advent of distributed agents that interact with parallel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-17 Tom Schaul , Diana Borsa , David Ding , David Szepesvari , Georg Ostrovski , Will Dabney , Simon Osindero

We study bandit learning in matching markets, where players and arms constitute the two market sides, and the players' utilities are linear in the arm contexts. In each round, new arms arrive with observable contexts. Then, the algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Shiyun Lin , Simon Mauras , Vianney Perchet , Nadav Merlis

This paper tackles a multi-agent bandit setting where $M$ agents cooperate together to solve the same instance of a $K$-armed stochastic bandit problem. The agents are \textit{heterogeneous}: each agent has limited access to a local subset…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-18 Lin Yang , Yu-zhen Janice Chen , Mohammad Hajiesmaili , John CS Lui , Don Towsley

We consider the problem of learning to choose actions using contextual information when provided with limited feedback in the form of relative pairwise comparisons. We study this problem in the dueling-bandits framework of Yue et al.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-06-16 Miroslav Dudík , Katja Hofmann , Robert E. Schapire , Aleksandrs Slivkins , Masrour Zoghi

We consider online learning problems under a partial observability model capturing situations where the information conveyed to the learner is between full information and bandit feedback. In the simplest variant, we assume that in addition…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Tomas Kocak , Gergely Neu , Michal Valko , Remi Munos

We study the reward-free reinforcement learning framework, which is particularly suitable for batch reinforcement learning and scenarios where one needs policies for multiple reward functions. This framework has two phases. In the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-26 Zihan Zhang , Simon S. Du , Xiangyang Ji

We introduce a stochastic principal-agent model. A principal and an agent interact in a stochastic environment, each privy to observations about the state not available to the other. The principal has the power of commitment, both to elicit…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-13 Jiarui Gan , Rupak Majumdar , Debmalya Mandal , Goran Radanovic

Recent advances in contextual bandit optimization and reinforcement learning have garnered interest in applying these methods to real-world sequential decision making problems. Real-world applications frequently have constraints with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Samuel Daulton , Shaun Singh , Vashist Avadhanula , Drew Dimmery , Eytan Bakshy

Game theory serves as a powerful tool for distributed optimization in multi-agent systems in different applications. In this paper we consider multi-agent systems that can be modeled by means of potential games whose potential function…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-04-13 Tatiana Tatarenko

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMAB) play a central role in modeling sequential decision making problems under an instantaneous activation constraint that at most B arms can be activated at any decision epoch. Each restless arm is endowed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-03 Guojun Xiong , Jian Li

Contextual bandit algorithms are essential for solving many real-world interactive machine learning problems. Despite multiple recent successes on statistically and computationally efficient methods, the practical behavior of these…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-06-08 Alberto Bietti , Alekh Agarwal , John Langford

We propose a new problem setting to study the sequential interactions between a recommender system and a user. Instead of assuming the user is omniscient, static, and explicit, as the classical practice does, we sketch a more realistic user…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-08 Fan Yao , Chuanhao Li , Denis Nekipelov , Hongning Wang , Haifeng Xu

We introduce a new class of reinforcement learning methods referred to as {\em episodic multi-armed bandits} (eMAB). In eMAB the learner proceeds in {\em episodes}, each composed of several {\em steps}, in which it chooses an action and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-13 Cem Tekin , Mihaela van der Schaar

Online decision-making can be formulated as the popular stochastic multi-armed bandit problem where a learner makes decisions (or takes actions) to maximize cumulative rewards collected from an unknown environment. This paper proposes to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-26 Jonathan Gornet , Mehdi Hosseinzadeh , Bruno Sinopoli

Most work on sequential learning assumes a fixed set of actions that are available all the time. However, in practice, actions can consist of picking subsets of readings from sensors that may break from time to time, road segments that can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-29 Gergely Neu , Michal Valko

Attention-based architectures trained on internet-scale language data have demonstrated state of the art reasoning ability for various language-based tasks, such as logic problems and textual reasoning. Additionally, these Large Language…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-08-22 Mark Van der Merwe , Devesh Jha

Stochastic optimization is a widely used approach for optimization under uncertainty, where uncertain input parameters are modeled by random variables. Exact or approximation algorithms have been obtained for several fundamental problems in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-14 Arpit Agarwal , Rohan Ghuge , Viswanath Nagarajan , Zhengjia Zhuo