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We present a provably optimal differentially private algorithm for the stochastic multi-arm bandit problem, as opposed to the private analogue of the UCB-algorithm [Mishra and Thakurta, 2015; Tossou and Dimitrakakis, 2016] which doesn't…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-24 Touqir Sajed , Or Sheffet

We propose EB-TC$\varepsilon$, a novel sampling rule for $\varepsilon$-best arm identification in stochastic bandits. It is the first instance of Top Two algorithm analyzed for approximate best arm identification. EB-TC$\varepsilon$ is an…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-11-07 Marc Jourdan , Rémy Degenne , Emilie Kaufmann

We study the problem of finding the most mutually correlated arms among many arms. We show that adaptive arms sampling strategies can have significant advantages over the non-adaptive uniform sampling strategy. Our proposed algorithms rely…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-04-24 Che-Yu Liu , Sébastien Bubeck

In many applications, evaluating the effectiveness of different alternatives comes with varying costs or resource usage. Motivated by such heterogeneity, we study the Best Arm Identification with Resource Constraints (BAIwRC) problem, where…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Zitian Li , Wang Chi Cheung

The best-arm identification (BAI) problem is one of the most fundamental problems in interactive machine learning, which has two flavors: the fixed-budget setting (FB) and the fixed-confidence setting (FC). For $K$-armed bandits with the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-20 Kapilan Balagopalan , Yinan Li , Yao Zhao , Tuan Nguyen , Anton Daitche , Houssam Nassif , Kwang-Sung Jun

We consider the performance of the difference-in-means estimator in a two-arm randomized experiment under common experimental endpoints such as continuous (regression), incidence, proportion and survival. We examine performance under both…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-07-08 David Azriel , Abba M. Krieger , Adam Kapelner

Quantum reinforcement learning has emerged as a framework combining quantum computation with sequential decision-making, and applications to the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem have been reported. The graph bandit problem extends the MAB…

We develop a frequentist decision-theoretic framework for selecting the best arm in one-shot, multi-arm randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Our approach characterizes the minimax-regret (MMR) optimal decision rule for any multivariate…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-10-21 Joonhwi Joo

We consider a sequential decision-making problem where an agent can take one action at a time and each action has a stochastic temporal extent, i.e., a new action cannot be taken until the previous one is finished. Upon completion, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-26 P Sharoff , Nishant A. Mehta , Ravi Ganti

The classical multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem involves a learner and a collection of K independent arms, each with its own ex ante unknown independent reward distribution. At each one of a finite number of rounds, the learner selects one…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-07 Hongda Hu , Arthur Charpentier , Mario Ghossoub , Alexander Schied

The best arm identification problem requires identifying the best alternative (i.e., arm) in active experimentation using the smallest number of experiments (i.e., arm pulls), which is crucial for cost-efficient and timely decision-making…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-17 Kapilan Balagopalan , Tuan Ngo Nguyen , Yao Zhao , Kwang-Sung Jun

Experimental design is an approach for selecting samples among a given set so as to obtain the best estimator for a given criterion. In the context of linear regression, several optimal designs have been derived, each associated with a…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-01-01 Geovani Rizk , Igor Colin , Albert Thomas , Moez Draief

In the classic Bayesian restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, there are $N$ arms, with rewards on all arms evolving at each time as Markov chains with known parameters. A player seeks to activate $K \geq 1$ arms at each time in order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-11-23 Wenhan Dai , Yi Gai , Bhaskar Krishnamachari , Qing Zhao

We study the combinatorial pure exploration problem Best-Set in stochastic multi-armed bandits. In a Best-Set instance, we are given $n$ arms with unknown reward distributions, as well as a family $\mathcal{F}$ of feasible subsets over the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-06 Lijie Chen , Anupam Gupta , Jian Li , Mingda Qiao , Ruosong Wang

We study a sequential resource allocation problem between a fixed number of arms. On each iteration the algorithm distributes a resource among the arms in order to maximize the expected success rate. Allocating more of the resource to a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-29 Yuval Dagan , Koby Crammer

Experimentation with interference poses a significant challenge in contemporary online platforms. Prior research on experimentation with interference has concentrated on the final output of a policy. The cumulative performance, while…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-17 Su Jia , Peter Frazier , Nathan Kallus

Bayesian optimal experimental design is a sub-field of statistics focused on developing methods to make efficient use of experimental resources. Any potential design is evaluated in terms of a utility function, such as the (theoretically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-21 Noble Kennamer , Steven Walton , Alexander Ihler

We study the problem of Robust Outlier Arm Identification (ROAI), where the goal is to identify arms whose expected rewards deviate substantially from the majority, by adaptively sampling from their reward distributions. We compute the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-22 Yinglun Zhu , Sumeet Katariya , Robert Nowak

We consider the Max $K$-Armed Bandit problem, where a learning agent is faced with several sources (arms) of items (rewards), and interested in finding the best item overall. At each time step the agent chooses an arm, and obtains a random…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-08-25 Yahel David , Nahum Shimkin

We study the problem of best arm identification with a fairness constraint in a given causal model. The goal is to find a soft intervention on a given node to maximize the outcome while meeting a fairness constraint by counterfactual…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2021-11-09 Ruijiang Gao , Han Feng