Related papers: A characterization of sample adaptivity in UCB dat…
We study a distributed stochastic multi-armed bandit where a client supplies the learner with communication-constrained feedback based on the rewards for the corresponding arm pulls. In our setup, the client must encode the rewards such…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is one of the most fundamental models in sequential decision-making, with the core challenge being the trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Although algorithms such as Upper…
We design and implement an adaptive experiment (a ``contextual bandit'') to learn a targeted treatment assignment policy, where the goal is to use a participant's survey responses to determine which charity to expose them to in a donation…
Contextual multi-armed bandits (CMAB) have been widely used for learning to filter and prioritize information according to a user's interest. In this work, we analyze top-K ranking under the CMAB framework where the top-K arms are chosen…
In this paper, we provide the first investigation into adaptive combinatorial experimental design, focusing on the trade-off between regret minimization and statistical power in combinatorial multi-armed bandits (CMAB). While minimizing…
Conservative Contextual Bandits (CCBs) address safety in sequential decision making by requiring that an agent's policy, along with minimizing regret, also satisfies a safety constraint: the performance is not worse than a baseline policy…
This paper is in the field of stochastic Multi-Armed Bandits (MABs), i.e. those sequential selection techniques able to learn online using only the feedback given by the chosen option (a.k.a. $arm$). We study a particular case of the rested…
We investigate the piecewise-stationary combinatorial semi-bandit problem. Compared to the original combinatorial semi-bandit problem, our setting assumes the reward distributions of base arms may change in a piecewise-stationary manner at…
We study the explore-exploit tradeoff in distributed cooperative decision-making using the context of the multiarmed bandit (MAB) problem. For the distributed cooperative MAB problem, we design the cooperative UCB algorithm that comprises…
We study the non-stationary stochastic multiarmed bandit (MAB) problem and propose two generic algorithms, namely, the limited memory deterministic sequencing of exploration and exploitation (LM-DSEE) and the Sliding-Window Upper Confidence…
In federated multi-armed bandit problems, maximizing global reward while satisfying minimum privacy requirements to protect clients is the main goal. To formulate such problems, we consider a combinatorial contextual bandit setting with…
In this paper, we study the application of the Thompson sampling (TS) methodology to the stochastic combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) framework. We first analyze the standard TS algorithm for the general CMAB model when the outcome…
We use the lens of weak signal asymptotics to study a class of sequentially randomized experiments, including those that arise in solving multi-armed bandit problems. In an experiment with $n$ time steps, we let the mean reward gaps between…
We consider stochastic multi-armed bandit problems with complex actions over a set of basic arms, where the decision maker plays a complex action rather than a basic arm in each round. The reward of the complex action is some function of…
We address multi-armed bandits (MAB) where the objective is to maximize the cumulative reward under a probabilistic linear constraint. For a few real-world instances of this problem, constrained extensions of the well-known Thompson…
In this paper we consider the contextual multi-armed bandit problem for linear payoffs under a risk-averse criterion. At each round, contexts are revealed for each arm, and the decision maker chooses one arm to pull and receives the…
UCT, a state-of-the art algorithm for Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) in games and Markov decision processes, is based on UCB1, a sampling policy for the Multi-armed Bandit problem (MAB) that minimizes the cumulative regret. However, search…
The multi-armed bandit problem has been extensively studied under the stationary assumption. However in reality, this assumption often does not hold because the distributions of rewards themselves may change over time. In this paper, we…
A contextual bandit problem is studied in a highly non-stationary environment, which is ubiquitous in various recommender systems due to the time-varying interests of users. Two models with disjoint and hybrid payoffs are considered to…
In retail, there are predictable yet dramatic time-dependent patterns in customer behavior, such as periodic changes in the number of visitors, or increases in customers just before major holidays. The current paradigm of multi-armed bandit…