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Drift analysis is one of the state-of-the-art techniques for the runtime analysis of randomized search heuristics (RSHs) such as evolutionary algorithms (EAs), simulated annealing etc. The vast majority of existing drift theorems yield…
We revisit the classic regret-minimization problem in the stochastic multi-armed bandit setting when the arm-distributions are allowed to be heavy-tailed. Regret minimization has been well studied in simpler settings of either bounded…
We study the tail behavior of regret in stochastic multi-armed bandits for algorithms that are asymptotically optimal in expectation. While minimizing expected regret is the classical objective, recent work shows that even such algorithms…
We consider model selection in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. Given a set of base learning algorithms, an effective model selection strategy adapts to the best learning algorithm in an online fashion. We show that by…
We propose and analyze TRAiL (Tangential Randomization in Linear Bandits), a computationally efficient regret-optimal forced exploration algorithm for linear bandits on action sets that are sublevel sets of strongly convex functions. TRAiL…
In performative prediction, the deployment of a predictive model triggers a shift in the data distribution. As these shifts are typically unknown ahead of time, the learner needs to deploy a model to get feedback about the distribution it…
The goal of a learner in standard online learning is to maintain an average loss close to the loss of the best-performing single function in some class. In many real-world problems, such as rating or ranking items, there is no single best…
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…
We consider the problem of joint routing and scheduling in queueing networks, where the edge transmission costs are unknown. At each time-slot, the network controller receives noisy observations of transmission costs only for those edges it…
This paper studies the online optimal control problem with time-varying convex stage costs for a time-invariant linear dynamical system, where a finite lookahead window of accurate predictions of the stage costs are available at each time.…
We consider the adversarial multi-armed bandit problem under delayed feedback. We analyze variants of the Exp3 algorithm that tune their step-size using only information (about the losses and delays) available at the time of the decisions,…
We consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with deterministic transitions and study the problem of regret minimization, which is central to the analysis and design of optimal learning algorithms. We present logarithmic problem-specific…
We consider the problem of combining and learning over a set of adversarial bandit algorithms with the goal of adaptively tracking the best one on the fly. The CORRAL algorithm of Agarwal et al. (2017) and its variants (Foster et al.,…
We derive instance-dependent tail bounds for the regret of optimism-based reinforcement learning in finite-horizon tabular Markov decision processes with unknown transition dynamics. We first study a UCBVI-type (model-based) algorithm and…
The dueling bandit is a learning framework wherein the feedback information in the learning process is restricted to a noisy comparison between a pair of actions. In this research, we address a dueling bandit problem based on a cost…
We present a new algorithm based on posterior sampling for learning in Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDP) in the infinite-horizon undiscounted setting. The algorithm achieves near-optimal regret bounds while being advantageous…
We study the problem of non-stationary dueling bandits and provide the first adaptive dynamic regret algorithm for this problem. The only two existing attempts in this line of work fall short across multiple dimensions, including…
Drift analysis is a powerful tool for analyzing the time complexity of evolutionary algorithms. However, it requires manual construction of drift functions to bound hitting time for each specific algorithm and problem. To address this…
We study the optimal trade-off between expectation and tail risk for regret distribution in the stochastic multi-armed bandit model. We fully characterize the interplay among three desired properties for policy design: worst-case…
Under the uncoupled learning setup, the last-iterate convergence guarantee towards Nash equilibrium is shown to be impossible in many games. This work studies the last-iterate convergence guarantee in general games toward rationalizability,…