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During online decision making in Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB), one needs to conduct inference on the true mean reward of each arm based on data collected so far at each step. However, since the arms are adaptively selected--thereby yielding…
We consider the classical stochastic multi-armed bandit but where, from time to time and roughly with frequency $\epsilon$, an extra observation is gathered by the agent for free. We prove that, no matter how small $\epsilon$ is the agent…
We consider a sequential assortment selection problem where the user choice is given by a multinomial logit (MNL) choice model whose parameters are unknown. In each period, the learning agent observes a $d$-dimensional contextual…
Past research on interactive decision making problems (bandits, reinforcement learning, etc.) mostly focuses on the minimax regret that measures the algorithm's performance on the hardest instance. However, an ideal algorithm should adapt…
We consider a Bayesian budgeted multi-armed bandit problem, in which each arm consumes a different amount of resources when selected and there is a budget constraint on the total amount of resources that can be used. Budgeted Thompson…
We study structured multi-armed bandits, which is the problem of online decision-making under uncertainty in the presence of structural information. In this problem, the decision-maker needs to discover the best course of action despite…
This work addresses the mediator feedback problem, a bandit game where the decision set consists of a number of policies, each associated with a probability distribution over a common space of outcomes. Upon choosing a policy, the learner…
Contextual bandit algorithms are sensitive to the estimation method of the outcome model as well as the exploration method used, particularly in the presence of rich heterogeneity or complex outcome models, which can lead to difficult…
PAC-Bayes has recently re-emerged as an effective theory with which one can derive principled learning algorithms with tight performance guarantees. However, applications of PAC-Bayes to bandit problems are relatively rare, which is a great…
Contextual bandits are a core technology for personalized mobile health interventions, where decision-making requires adapting to complex, non-linear user behaviors. While Thompson Sampling (TS) is a preferred strategy for these problems,…
This paper presents a class of Dynamic Multi-Armed Bandit problems where the reward can be modeled as the noisy output of a time varying linear stochastic dynamic system that satisfies some boundedness constraints. The class allows many…
We address online combinatorial optimization when the player has a prior over the adversary's sequence of losses. In this framework, Russo and Van Roy proposed an information-theoretic analysis of Thompson Sampling based on the information…
Thompson Sampling, one of the oldest heuristics for solving multi-armed bandits, has recently been shown to demonstrate state-of-the-art performance. The empirical success has led to great interests in theoretical understanding of this…
The design and performance analysis of bandit algorithms in the presence of stage-wise safety or reliability constraints has recently garnered significant interest. In this work, we consider the linear stochastic bandit problem under…
Variance-dependent regret bounds have received increasing attention in recent studies on contextual bandits. However, most of these studies are focused on upper confidence bound (UCB)-based bandit algorithms, while sampling based bandit…
We consider stochastic non-stationary linear bandits where the linear parameter connecting contexts to the reward changes over time. Existing algorithms in this setting localize the policy by gradually discarding or down-weighting past…
The deployment of Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) has become commonplace in many economic applications. However, regret guarantees for even state-of-the-art linear bandit algorithms (such as Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty Linear bandit…
Psychological research shows that enjoyment of many goods is subject to satiation, with short-term satisfaction declining after repeated exposures to the same item. Nevertheless, proposed algorithms for powering recommender systems seldom…
We study the problem of dynamic batch learning in high-dimensional sparse linear contextual bandits, where a decision maker, under a given maximum-number-of-batch constraint and only able to observe rewards at the end of each batch, can…
Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) is arguably the most commonly used method for linear multi-arm bandit problems. While conceptually and computationally simple, this method highly relies on the confidence bounds, failing to strike the optimal…