Related papers: UCB Exploration for Fixed-Budget Bayesian Best Arm…
We study the fixed-confidence best-arm identification problem in unimodal bandits, in which the means of the arms increase with the index of the arm up to their maximum, then decrease. We derive two lower bounds on the stopping time of any…
We study best-arm identification with fixed confidence in bandit models with graph smoothness constraint. We provide and analyze an efficient gradient ascent algorithm to compute the sample complexity of this problem as a solution of a…
Motivated by economic applications such as recommender systems, we study the behavior of stochastic bandits algorithms under \emph{strategic behavior} conducted by rational actors, i.e., the arms. Each arm is a \emph{self-interested}…
Research in reinforcement learning has produced algorithms for optimal decision making under uncertainty that fall within two main types. The first employs a Bayesian framework, where optimality improves with increased computational time.…
Many applications require a learner to make sequential decisions given uncertainty regarding both the system's payoff function and safety constraints. In safety-critical systems, it is paramount that the learner's actions do not violate the…
We consider a multi-armed bandit setting with finitely many arms, in which each arm yields an $M$-dimensional vector reward upon selection. We assume that the reward of each dimension (a.k.a. {\em objective}) is generated independently of…
We study a decentralized cooperative stochastic multi-armed bandit problem with $K$ arms on a network of $N$ agents. In our model, the reward distribution of each arm is the same for each agent and rewards are drawn independently across…
We provide a simple method to combine stochastic bandit algorithms. Our approach is based on a "meta-UCB" procedure that treats each of $N$ individual bandit algorithms as arms in a higher-level $N$-armed bandit problem that we solve with a…
This study investigates an asymptotically minimax optimal algorithm in the two-armed fixed-budget best-arm identification (BAI) problem. Given two treatment arms, the objective is to identify the arm with the highest expected outcome…
We consider a variant of the classic multi-armed bandit problem where the expected reward of each arm is a function of an unknown parameter. The arms are divided into different groups, each of which has a common parameter. Therefore, when…
Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the strategy deployed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. Further, often we have only partial information on the state of the system. We study the…
Real-time status updating applications increasingly rely on networks of devices and edge nodes to maintain data freshness, as quantified by the age of information (AoI) metric. Given that edge computing nodes exhibit uncertain and…
The Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem is challenging in non-stationary environments where reward distributions evolve dynamically. We introduce RAVEN-UCB, a novel algorithm that combines theoretical rigor with practical efficiency via…
Developing efficient sequential bidding strategies for repeated auctions is an important practical challenge in various marketing tasks. In this setting, the bidding agent obtains information, on both the value of the item at sale and the…
We investigate the problem of fixed-budget best arm identification (BAI) for minimizing expected simple regret. In an adaptive experiment, a decision maker draws one of multiple treatment arms based on past observations and observes the…
In many platforms, user arrivals exhibit a self-reinforcing behavior: future user arrivals are likely to have preferences similar to users who were satisfied in the past. In other words, arrivals exhibit positive externalities. We study…
In bandit best-arm identification, an algorithm is tasked with finding the arm with highest mean reward with a specified accuracy as fast as possible. We study multi-fidelity best-arm identification, in which the algorithm can choose to…
We present a formal model of human decision-making in explore-exploit tasks using the context of multi-armed bandit problems, where the decision-maker must choose among multiple options with uncertain rewards. We address the standard…
Consider a decision-maker that can pick one out of $K$ actions to control an unknown system, for $T$ turns. The actions are interpreted as different configurations or policies. Holding the same action fixed, the system asymptotically…
We consider the problem of finding, through adaptive sampling, which of $n$ options (arms) has the largest mean. Our objective is to determine a rule which identifies the best arm with a fixed minimum confidence using as few observations as…