Related papers: TS-RSR: A provably efficient approach for batch Ba…
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a popular method for black-box optimization, which relies on uncertainty as part of its decision-making process when deciding which experiment to perform next. However, not much work has addressed the effect of…
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a powerful approach to sample-efficient optimization of black-box objective functions. However, the application of BO to areas such as recommendation systems often requires taking the interpretability and…
The design and performance analysis of bandit algorithms in the presence of stage-wise safety or reliability constraints has recently garnered significant interest. In this work, we consider the linear stochastic bandit problem under…
Bayesian optimization (BO) based on Gaussian process models is a powerful paradigm to optimize black-box functions that are expensive to evaluate. While several BO algorithms provably converge to the global optimum of the unknown function,…
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a popular approach for sample-efficient optimization of black-box objective functions. While BO has been successfully applied to a wide range of scientific applications, traditional approaches to…
Many real-world functions are defined over both categorical and category-specific continuous variables and thus cannot be optimized by traditional Bayesian optimization (BO) methods. To optimize such functions, we propose a new method that…
Much of the recent literature on bandit learning focuses on algorithms that aim to converge on an optimal action. One shortcoming is that this orientation does not account for time sensitivity, which can play a crucial role when learning an…
We study Thompson Sampling-based algorithms for stochastic bandits with bounded rewards. As the existing problem-dependent regret bound for Thompson Sampling with Gaussian priors [Agrawal and Goyal, 2017] is vacuous when $T \le 288 e^{64}$,…
Response-adaptive randomization (RAR) has been studied extensively in conventional, single-stage clinical trials, where it has been shown to yield ethical and statistical benefits, especially in trials with many treatment arms. However, RAR…
In settings where the application of reinforcement learning (RL) requires running real-world trials, including the optimization of adaptive health interventions, the number of episodes available for learning can be severely limited due to…
Thompson sampling (TS) is a Bayesian randomized exploration strategy that samples options (e.g., system parameters or control laws) from the current posterior and then applies the selected option that is optimal for a task, thereby…
This work tackles the complexities of multi-player scenarios in \emph{unknown games}, where the primary challenge lies in navigating the uncertainty of the environment through bandit feedback alongside strategic decision-making. We…
We propose a novel Thompson sampling algorithm that learns linear quadratic regulators (LQR) with a Bayesian regret bound of $O(\sqrt{T})$. Our method leverages Langevin dynamics with a carefully designed preconditioner and incorporates a…
Bayesian optimization devolves the global optimization of a costly objective function to the global optimization of a sequence of acquisition functions. This inner-loop optimization can be catastrophically difficult if it involves posterior…
Thompson Sampling is one of the most widely used and studied bandit algorithms, known for its simple structure, low regret performance, and solid theoretical guarantees. Yet, in stark contrast to most other families of bandit algorithms,…
Meta-Bayesian optimisation (meta-BO) aims to improve the sample efficiency of Bayesian optimisation by leveraging data from related tasks. While previous methods successfully meta-learn either a surrogate model or an acquisition function…
Restless bandit problems are instances of non-stationary multi-armed bandits. These problems have been studied well from the optimization perspective, where the goal is to efficiently find a near-optimal policy when system parameters are…
Thompson sampling (TS) is one of the most popular exploration techniques in reinforcement learning (RL). However, most TS algorithms with theoretical guarantees are difficult to implement and not generalizable to Deep RL. While the emerging…
In this paper, we prove the first Bayesian regret bounds for Thompson Sampling in reinforcement learning in a multitude of settings. We simplify the learning problem using a discrete set of surrogate environments, and present a refined…
This paper presents an advancement to an approach for model-independent surrogate-based optimization with adaptive batch sampling, known as Adaptive Model Refinement (AMR). While the original AMR method provides unique decisions with…