Related papers: Infrequent Exploration in Linear Bandits
We study a stylized social learning dynamics where self-interested agents collectively follow a simple multi-armed bandit protocol. Each agent controls an ``episode": a short sequence of consecutive decisions. Motivating applications…
Thompson Sampling has been widely used for contextual bandit problems due to the flexibility of its modeling power. However, a general theory for this class of methods in the frequentist setting is still lacking. In this paper, we present a…
We study the greedy (exploitation-only) algorithm in bandit problems with a known reward structure. We allow arbitrary finite reward structures, while prior work focused on a few specific ones. We fully characterize when the greedy…
This paper investigates the problem of non-stationary linear bandits, where the unknown regression parameter is evolving over time. Existing studies develop various algorithms and show that they enjoy an…
Non-stationary parametric bandits have attracted much attention recently. There are three principled ways to deal with non-stationarity, including sliding-window, weighted, and restart strategies. As many non-stationary environments exhibit…
Multi-armed bandit problems are the most basic examples of sequential decision problems with an exploration-exploitation trade-off. This is the balance between staying with the option that gave highest payoffs in the past and exploring new…
In this paper, we consider a very general model for exploration-exploitation tradeoff which allows arbitrary concave rewards and convex constraints on the decisions across time, in addition to the customary limitation on the time horizon.…
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…
This paper proposes near-optimal algorithms for the pure-exploration linear bandit problem in the fixed confidence and fixed budget settings. Leveraging ideas from the theory of suprema of empirical processes, we provide an algorithm whose…
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…
Many important optimization problems, such as the minimum spanning tree and minimum-cost flow, can be solved optimally by a greedy method. In this work, we study a learning variant of these problems, where the model of the problem is…
We propose and analyze TRAiL (Tangential Randomization in Linear Bandits), a computationally efficient regret-optimal forced exploration algorithm for linear bandits on action sets that are sublevel sets of strongly convex functions. TRAiL…
We provide an approach for the analysis of randomised exploration algorithms like Thompson sampling that does not rely on forced optimism or posterior inflation. With this, we demonstrate that in the $d$-dimensional linear bandit setting,…
In bandit settings, optimizing long-term regret metrics requires exploration, which corresponds to sometimes taking myopically sub-optimal actions. When a long-lived principal merely recommends actions to be executed by a sequence of…
In this paper, we propose and study opportunistic contextual bandits - a special case of contextual bandits where the exploration cost varies under different environmental conditions, such as network load or return variation in…
Contextual bandits are a central framework for sequential decision-making, with applications ranging from recommendation systems to clinical trials. While nonparametric methods can flexibly model complex reward structures, they suffer from…
We study the problem of minimising regret in two-armed bandit problems with Gaussian rewards. Our objective is to use this simple setting to illustrate that strategies based on an exploration phase (up to a stopping time) followed by…
We consider the framework of methods for unconstrained minimization that are, in each iteration, restricted to a model that is only a valid approximation to the objective function on some affine subspace containing an incumbent point. These…
We study contextual bandits with finitely many actions in which the reward of each arm follows a single-index model with an arm-specific index parameter and an unknown nonparametric link function. We consider a regime in which arms…
We introduce the "inverse bandit" problem of estimating the rewards of a multi-armed bandit instance from observing the learning process of a low-regret demonstrator. Existing approaches to the related problem of inverse reinforcement…