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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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Riccardo Poiani , Marc Jourdan , Emilie Kaufmann , Rémy Degenne

Thompson Sampling is one of the oldest heuristics for multi-armed bandit problems. It is a randomized algorithm based on Bayesian ideas, and has recently generated significant interest after several studies demonstrated it to have better…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-02-04 Shipra Agrawal , Navin Goyal

We propose a novel technique for analyzing adaptive sampling called the {\em Simulator}. Our approach differs from the existing methods by considering not how much information could be gathered by any fixed sampling strategy, but how…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-25 Max Simchowitz , Kevin Jamieson , Benjamin Recht

Combinatorial linear semi-bandits (CLS) are widely applicable frameworks of sequential decision-making, in which a learner chooses a subset of arms from a given set of arms associated with feature vectors. Existing algorithms work poorly…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-09-11 Kei Takemura , Shinji Ito

In pure exploration problems, a statistician sequentially collects information to answer a question about some stochastic and unknown environment. The probability of returning a wrong answer should not exceed a maximum risk parameter…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-19 Riccardo Poiani , Martino Bernasconi , Andrea Celli

We study the problem of regret minimization in a multi-armed bandit setup where the agent is allowed to play multiple arms at each round by spreading the resources usually allocated to only one arm. At each iteration the agent selects a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-01 Matias I. Müller , Cristian R. Rojas

We give a new algorithm for best arm identification in linearly parameterised bandits in the fixed confidence setting. The algorithm generalises the well-known LUCB algorithm of Kalyanakrishnan et al. (2012) by playing an arm which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-11 Mohammadi Zaki , Avinash Mohan , Aditya Gopalan

The 1-identification problem is a fundamental pure-exploration problem in multi-armed bandits. An agent aims to determine whether there exists an arm whose mean reward exceeds a known threshold $\mu_0$, or to output \textsf{None} otherwise.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-15 Zitian Li , Wang Chi Cheung

For the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem from a constrained model that generalizes the classical one, we show that an asymptotic optimality is achievable by a simple strategy extended from the $\epsilon_t$-greedy strategy. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-04 Hyeong Soo Chang

We investigate finite stochastic partial monitoring, which is a general model for sequential learning with limited feedback. While Thompson sampling is one of the most promising algorithms on a variety of online decision-making problems,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-06-11 Taira Tsuchiya , Junya Honda , Masashi Sugiyama

Given a set of arms $\mathcal{Z}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ and an unknown parameter vector $\theta_\ast\in\mathbb{R}^d$, the pure exploration linear bandit problem aims to return $\arg\max_{z\in \mathcal{Z}} z^{\top}\theta_{\ast}$, with high…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-26 Zhaoqi Li , Kevin Jamieson , Lalit Jain

Thompson sampling is one of the earliest randomized algorithms for multi-armed bandits (MAB). In this paper, we extend the Thompson sampling to Budgeted MAB, where there is random cost for pulling an arm and the total cost is constrained by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-05-04 Yingce Xia , Haifang Li , Tao Qin , Nenghai Yu , Tie-Yan Liu

We consider two multi-armed bandit problems with $n$ arms: (i) given an $\epsilon > 0$, identify an arm with mean that is within $\epsilon$ of the largest mean and (ii) given a threshold $\mu_0$ and integer $k$, identify $k$ arms with means…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-18 Julian Katz-Samuels , Kevin Jamieson

We consider a constrained, pure exploration, stochastic multi-armed bandit formulation under a fixed budget. Each arm is associated with an unknown, possibly multi-dimensional distribution and is described by multiple attributes that are a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-29 Fathima Zarin Faizal , Jayakrishnan Nair

The combinatorial stochastic semi-bandit problem is an extension of the classical multi-armed bandit problem in which an algorithm pulls more than one arm at each stage and the rewards of all pulled arms are revealed. One difference with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-12-07 Rémy Degenne , Vianney Perchet

We propose a generalization of the best arm identification problem in stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB) to the setting where every pull of an arm is associated with delayed feedback. The delay in feedback increases the effective sample…

The problem of identifying the best arm among a collection of items having Gaussian rewards distribution is well understood when the variances are known. Despite its practical relevance for many applications, few works studied it for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-01-24 Marc Jourdan , Rémy Degenne , Emilie Kaufmann

We study fixed budget constrained best-arm identification in grouped bandits, where each arm consists of multiple independent attributes with stochastic rewards. An arm is considered feasible only if all its attributes' means are above a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-05 Raunak Mukherjee , Sharayu Moharir

Motivated by an open direction in existing literature, we study the 1-identification problem, a fundamental multi-armed bandit formulation on pure exploration. The goal is to determine whether there exists an arm whose mean reward is at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-21 Zitian Li , Wang Chi Cheung

We study the real-valued combinatorial pure exploration of the multi-armed bandit (R-CPE-MAB) problem. In R-CPE-MAB, a player is given $d$ stochastic arms, and the reward of each arm $s\in\{1, \ldots, d\}$ follows an unknown distribution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-16 Shintaro Nakamura , Masashi Sugiyama