Related papers: An Algorithm for Fixed Budget Best Arm Identificat…
We consider best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit problem. Assuming certain continuity conditions of the prior, we characterize the rate of the Bayesian simple regret. Differing from Bayesian regret minimization (Lai, 1987), the…
We consider a stochastic bandit problem with a possibly infinite number of arms. We write $p^*$ for the proportion of optimal arms and $\Delta$ for the minimal mean-gap between optimal and sub-optimal arms. We characterize the optimal…
Sampling from distributions to find the one with the largest mean arises in a broad range of applications, and it can be mathematically modeled as a multi-armed bandit problem in which each distribution is associated with an arm. This paper…
This paper presents a comprehensive study on the problem of Best Arm Retention (BAR), which has recently found applications in streaming algorithms for multi-armed bandits. In the BAR problem, the goal is to retain $m$ arms with the best…
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 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…
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem where the decision maker can explore and exploit different arms at every round. The exploited arm adds to the decision maker's cumulative reward (without necessarily observing the reward) while the…
We study the problem of best-arm identification with fixed budget in stochastic multi-armed bandits with Bernoulli rewards. For the problem with two arms, also known as the A/B testing problem, we prove that there is no algorithm that (i)…
Combinatorial bandits extend the classical bandit framework to settings where the learner selects multiple arms in each round, motivated by applications such as online recommendation and assortment optimization. While extensions of upper…
This paper introduces a general multi-agent bandit model in which each agent is facing a finite set of arms and may communicate with other agents through a central controller in order to identify, in pure exploration, or play, in regret…
The best arm identification problem (BEST-1-ARM) is the most basic pure exploration problem in stochastic multi-armed bandits. The problem has a long history and attracted significant attention for the last decade. However, we do not yet…
We study the multi-armed bandit problem with multiple plays and a budget constraint for both the stochastic and the adversarial setting. At each round, exactly $K$ out of $N$ possible arms have to be played (with $1\leq K \leq N$). In…
The paper proposes a novel upper confidence bound (UCB) procedure for identifying the arm with the largest mean in a multi-armed bandit game in the fixed confidence setting using a small number of total samples. The procedure cannot be…
Decision making under uncertain environments in the maximization of expected reward while minimizing its risk is one of the ubiquitous problems in many subjects. Here, we introduce a novel problem setting in stochastic bandit optimization…
We consider the problem of identifying any $k$ out of the best $m$ arms in an $n$-armed stochastic multi-armed bandit. Framed in the PAC setting, this particular problem generalises both the problem of `best subset selection' and that of…
Motivated by drug design, we consider the best-arm identification problem in generalized linear bandits. More specifically, we assume each arm has a vector of covariates, there is an unknown vector of parameters that is common across the…
We study the problem of best-arm identification in a distributed variant of the multi-armed bandit setting, with a central learner and multiple agents. Each agent is associated with an arm of the bandit, generating stochastic rewards…
In this paper, we address the problem of identifying the Pareto Set under feasibility constraints in a multivariate bandit setting. Specifically, given a $K$-armed bandit with unknown means $\mu_1, \dots, \mu_K \in \mathbb{R}^d$, the goal…
We give a complete characterization of the complexity of best-arm identification in one-parameter bandit problems. We prove a new, tight lower bound on the sample complexity. We propose the `Track-and-Stop' strategy, which we prove to be…
In this paper, we consider a bandit problem in which there are a number of groups each consisting of infinitely many arms. Whenever a new arm is requested from a given group, its mean reward is drawn from an unknown reservoir distribution…