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We introduce a new graphical bilinear bandit problem where a learner (or a \emph{central entity}) allocates arms to the nodes of a graph and observes for each edge a noisy bilinear reward representing the interaction between the two end…
We consider the problem of best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit model, under fixed confidence. Given a confidence input $\delta$, the goal is to identify the arm with the highest mean reward with a probability of at least 1 --…
The improving multi-armed bandits problem is a formal model for allocating effort under uncertainty, motivated by scenarios such as investing research effort into new technologies, performing clinical trials, and hyperparameter selection…
Multi-task learning in contextual bandits has attracted significant research interest due to its potential to enhance decision-making across multiple related tasks by leveraging shared structures and task-specific heterogeneity. In this…
In this paper, we study the problem of estimating uniformly well the mean values of several distributions given a finite budget of samples. If the variance of the distributions were known, one could design an optimal sampling strategy by…
In multi-armed bandits, the tasks of reward maximization and pure exploration are often at odds with each other. The former focuses on exploiting arms with the highest means, while the latter may require constant exploration across all…
We consider a Bayesian budgeted multi-armed bandit problem, in which each arm consumes a different amount of resources when selected and there is a budget constraint on the total amount of resources that can be used. Budgeted Thompson…
This paper studies bandit problems where an agent has access to offline data that might be utilized to potentially improve the estimation of each arm's reward distribution. A major obstacle in this setting is the existence of compound…
In this paper, we consider several finite-horizon Bayesian multi-armed bandit problems with side constraints which are computationally intractable (NP-Hard) and for which no optimal (or near optimal) algorithms are known to exist with…
We investigate an active pure-exploration setting, that includes best-arm identification, in the context of linear stochastic bandits. While asymptotically optimal algorithms exist for standard multi-arm bandits, the existence of such…
We study an online stochastic matching problem in which an algorithm sequentially matches $U$ users to $K$ arms, aiming to maximize cumulative reward over $T$ rounds under budget constraints. Without structural assumptions, computing the…
This paper formulates a new Best-Arm Identification problem in the non-stationary stochastic bandits setting, where the means of all arms are shifted in the same way due to a global influence of the environment. The aim is to identify the…
We study the problem of learning 'good' interventions in a stochastic environment modeled by its underlying causal graph. Good interventions refer to interventions that maximize rewards. Specifically, we consider the setting of a…
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…
Multi-armed bandits (MAB) are commonly used in sequential online decision-making when the reward of each decision is an unknown random variable. In practice however, the typical goal of maximizing total reward may be less important than…
Consider a multi-phase project management problem where the decision maker needs to deal with two issues: (a) how to allocate resources to projects within each phase, and (b) when to enter the next phase, so that the total expected reward…
Learning personalized cancer treatment with machine learning holds great promise to improve cancer patients' chance of survival. Despite recent advances in machine learning and precision oncology, this approach remains challenging as…
Mode estimation is a classical problem in statistics with a wide range of applications in machine learning. Despite this, there is little understanding in its robustness properties under possibly adversarial data contamination. In this…
We study the problem of designing replication-proof bandit mechanisms when agents strategically register or replicate their own arms to maximize their payoff. Specifically, we consider Bayesian agents who only know the distribution from…
We study the stochastic Budgeted Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem, where a player chooses from $K$ arms with unknown expected rewards and costs. The goal is to maximize the total reward under a budget constraint. A player thus seeks to…