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We study the constrained variant of the \emph{multi-armed bandit} (MAB) problem, in which the learner aims not only at minimizing the total loss incurred during the learning dynamic, but also at controlling the violation of multiple…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Kalana Kalupahana , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We consider the problem of preference based reinforcement learning (PbRL), where, unlike traditional reinforcement learning, an agent receives feedback only in terms of a 1 bit (0/1) preference over a trajectory pair instead of absolute…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-07 Aldo Pacchiano , Aadirupa Saha , Jonathan Lee

The stochastic generalised linear bandit is a well-understood model for sequential decision-making problems, with many algorithms achieving near-optimal regret guarantees under immediate feedback. However, the stringent requirement for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-12 Benjamin Howson , Ciara Pike-Burke , Sarah Filippi

We study the non-stationary stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, where the reward statistics of each arm may change several times during the course of learning. The performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated in terms of their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-09 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Andras Gyorgy , Nevena Lazic

In this study, we explore a collaborative multi-agent stochastic linear bandit setting involving a network of $N$ agents that communicate locally to minimize their collective regret while keeping their expected cost under a specified…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-24 Amirhossein Afsharrad , Parisa Oftadeh , Ahmadreza Moradipari , Sanjay Lall

The Lipschitz bandit problem extends stochastic bandits to a continuous action set defined over a metric space, where the expected reward function satisfies a Lipschitz condition. In this work, we introduce a new problem of Lipschitz bandit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Zhongxuan Liu , Yue Kang , Thomas C. M. Lee

We study a regret minimization problem with the existence of multiple best/near-optimal arms in the multi-armed bandit setting. We consider the case when the number of arms/actions is comparable or much larger than the time horizon, and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-23 Yinglun Zhu , Robert Nowak

We study reinforcement learning (RL) for decision processes with non-Markovian reward, in which high-level knowledge of the task in the form of reward machines is available to the learner. We consider probabilistic reward machines with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-30 Hippolyte Bourel , Anders Jonsson , Odalric-Ambrym Maillard , Chenxiao Ma , Mohammad Sadegh Talebi

We study tabular reinforcement learning problems with multiple steps of lookahead information. Before acting, the learner observes $\ell$ steps of future transition and reward realizations: the exact state the agent would reach and the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-16 Nadav Merlis

This paper introduces and addresses a wide class of stochastic bandit problems where the function mapping the arm to the corresponding reward exhibits some known structural properties. Most existing structures (e.g. linear, Lipschitz,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-11-02 Richard Combes , Stefan Magureanu , Alexandre Proutiere

We study a collaborative multi-agent stochastic linear bandit setting, where $N$ agents that form a network communicate locally to minimize their overall regret. In this setting, each agent has its own linear bandit problem (its own reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-16 Ahmadreza Moradipari , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Mahnoosh Alizadeh

We study the problem of guaranteeing low regret in repeated games against an opponent with unknown membership in one of several classes. We add the constraint that our algorithm is non-exploitable, in that the opponent lacks an incentive to…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-07-05 Anthony DiGiovanni , Ambuj Tewari

We consider minimisation of dynamic regret in non-stationary bandits with a slowly varying property. Namely, we assume that arms' rewards are stochastic and independent over time, but that the absolute difference between the expected…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Ramakrishnan Krishnamurthy , Aditya Gopalan

We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Aldo Pacchiano , Christoph Dann , Claudio Gentile , Peter Bartlett

Heavy-tailed distributions naturally arise in several settings, from finance to telecommunications. While regret minimization under subgaussian or bounded rewards has been widely studied, learning with heavy-tailed distributions only gained…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-13 Gianmarco Genalti , Lupo Marsigli , Nicola Gatti , Alberto Maria Metelli

We present an algorithm based on posterior sampling (aka Thompson sampling) that achieves near-optimal worst-case regret bounds when the underlying Markov Decision Process (MDP) is communicating with a finite, though unknown, diameter. Our…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-01 Shipra Agrawal , Randy Jia

In this paper we study the non-stationary stochastic optimization question with bandit feedback and dynamic regret measures. The seminal work of Besbes et al. (2015) shows that, when aggregated function changes is known a priori, a simple…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-10-12 Yining Wang

In this paper, we study a family of conservative bandit problems (CBPs) with sample-path reward constraints, i.e., the learner's reward performance must be at least as well as a given baseline at any time. We propose a One-Size-Fits-All…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-08 Yihan Du , Siwei Wang , Longbo Huang

This paper studies constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with constraints against stochastic thresholds, aiming at safety of reinforcement learning in unknown and uncertain environments. We leverage a Growing-Window estimator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-25 Qian Zuo , Fengxiang He

We study variance-dependent regret bounds for Markov decision processes (MDPs). Algorithms with variance-dependent regret guarantees can automatically exploit environments with low variance (e.g., enjoying constant regret on deterministic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Runlong Zhou , Zihan Zhang , Simon S. Du