Related papers: Multiplier Bootstrap-based Exploration
Stochastic multi-armed bandits (MABs) provide a fundamental reinforcement learning model to study sequential decision making in uncertain environments. The upper confidence bounds (UCB) algorithm gave birth to the renaissance of bandit…
While in general trading off exploration and exploitation in reinforcement learning is hard, under some formulations relatively simple solutions exist. In this paper, we first derive upper bounds for the utility of selecting different…
Stochastic multi-armed bandits solve the Exploration-Exploitation dilemma and ultimately maximize the expected reward. Nonetheless, in many practical problems, maximizing the expected reward is not the most desirable objective. In this…
Contextual multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms have been shown promising for maximizing cumulative rewards in sequential decision tasks such as news article recommendation systems, web page ad placement algorithms, and mobile health.…
We consider a constrained, pure exploration, stochastic multi-armed bandit formulation under a fixed budget. Each arm is associated with an unknown, possibly multi-dimensional distribution and is described by multiple attributes that are a…
We study the piecewise-stationary restless multi-armed bandit (PS-RMAB) problem, where each arm evolves as a Markov chain but \emph{mean rewards may change across unknown segments}. To address the resulting exploration--detection delay…
We investigate a Bayesian $k$-armed bandit problem in the \emph{many-armed} regime, where $k \geq \sqrt{T}$ and $T$ represents the time horizon. Initially, and aligned with recent literature on many-armed bandit problems, we observe that…
Continuously learning and leveraging the knowledge accumulated from prior tasks in order to improve future performance is a long standing machine learning problem. In this paper, we study the problem in the multi-armed bandit framework with…
We study a finite-horizon restless multi-armed bandit problem with multiple actions, dubbed R(MA)^2B. The state of each arm evolves according to a controlled Markov decision process (MDP), and the reward of pulling an arm depends on both…
Pure exploration is one of the fundamental problems in multi-armed bandits (MAB). However, existing works mostly focus on specific pure exploration tasks, without a holistic view of the general pure exploration problem. This work fills this…
We address the problem of multi-group mean estimation, which seeks to allocate a finite sampling budget across multiple groups to obtain uniformly accurate estimates of their means. Unlike classical multi-armed bandits, whose objective is…
Bayesian optimization is a framework for global search via maximum a posteriori updates rather than simulated annealing, and has gained prominence for decision-making under uncertainty. In this work, we cast Bayesian optimization as a…
The objective of canonical multi-armed bandits is to identify and repeatedly select an arm with the largest reward, often in the form of the expected value of the arm's probability distribution. Such a utilitarian perspective and focus on…
We study the stochastic Multiplayer Multi-Armed Bandit (MMAB) problem, where multiple players select arms to maximize their cumulative rewards. Collisions occur when two or more players select the same arm, resulting in no reward, and are…
We study the pure exploration problem subject to a matroid constraint (Best-Basis) in a stochastic multi-armed bandit game. In a Best-Basis instance, we are given $n$ stochastic arms with unknown reward distributions, as well as a matroid…
We consider the classic online learning and stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problems, when at each step, the online policy can probe and find out which of a small number ($k$) of choices has better reward (or loss) before making its…
In several applications such as clinical trials and financial portfolio optimization, the expected value (or the average reward) does not satisfactorily capture the merits of a drug or a portfolio. In such applications, risk plays a crucial…
We study collaborative learning in multi-agent Bayesian bandit problems, where strategic agents collectively solve the same bandit instance. While multiple agents can accelerate learning by sharing information, strategic agents might prefer…
The paper addresses the Multiplayer Multi-Armed Bandit (MMAB) problem, where $M$ decision makers or players collaborate to maximize their cumulative reward. When several players select the same arm, a collision occurs and no reward is…
We study stochastic linear optimization problem with bandit feedback. The set of arms take values in an $N$-dimensional space and belong to a bounded polyhedron described by finitely many linear inequalities. We provide a lower bound for…