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We introduce and study a new variant of the multi-armed bandit problem (MAB), called the survival bandit problem (S-MAB). While in both problems, the objective is to maximize the so-called cumulative reward, in this new variant, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-09 Charles Riou , Junya Honda , Masashi Sugiyama

In the regret-based formulation of Multi-armed Bandit (MAB) problems, except in rare instances, much of the literature focuses on arms with i.i.d. rewards. In this paper, we consider the problem of obtaining regret guarantees for MAB…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-11 Arghyadip Roy , Sanjay Shakkottai , R. Srikant

The Prophet Inequality and Pandora's Box problems are fundamental stochastic problem with applications in Mechanism Design, Online Algorithms, Stochastic Optimization, Optimal Stopping, and Operations Research. A usual assumption in these…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-12-08 Khashayar Gatmiry , Thomas Kesselheim , Sahil Singla , Yifan Wang

A standard assumption adopted in the multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework is that the mean rewards are constant over time. This assumption can be restrictive in the business world as decision-makers often face an evolving environment where…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-24 Ningyuan Chen , Chun Wang , Longlin Wang

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-28 Yifan Lin , Yuhao Wang , Enlu Zhou

Classical multi-armed bandit problems use the expected value of an arm as a metric to evaluate its goodness. However, the expected value is a risk-neutral metric. In many applications like finance, one is interested in balancing the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-04 Anmol Kagrecha , Jayakrishnan Nair , Krishna Jagannathan

We consider a novel stochastic multi-armed bandit setting, where playing an arm makes it unavailable for a fixed number of time slots thereafter. This models situations where reusing an arm too often is undesirable (e.g. making the same…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-31 Soumya Basu , Rajat Sen , Sujay Sanghavi , Sanjay Shakkottai

In this paper we investigate the problem of stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB) in the (local) differential privacy (DP/LDP) model. Unlike previous results that assume bounded/sub-Gaussian reward distributions, we focus on the setting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Youming Tao , Yulian Wu , Peng Zhao , Di Wang

We consider a budget-constrained bandit problem where each arm pull incurs a random cost, and yields a random reward in return. The objective is to maximize the total expected reward under a budget constraint on the total cost. The model is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-03 Semih Cayci , Atilla Eryilmaz , R. Srikant

We extend the notion of regret with a welfarist perspective. Focussing on the classic multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework, the current work quantifies the performance of bandit algorithms by applying a fundamental welfare function, namely…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-30 Siddharth Barman , Arindam Khan , Arnab Maiti , Ayush Sawarni

We study finite-armed semiparametric bandits, where each arm's reward combines a linear component with an unknown, potentially adversarial shift. This model strictly generalizes classical linear bandits and reflects complexities common in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-18 Seok-Jin Kim , Gi-Soo Kim , Min-hwan Oh

In multi-armed bandits with network interference (MABNI), the action taken by one node can influence the rewards of others, creating complex interdependence. While existing research on MABNI largely concentrates on minimizing regret, it…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Zichen Wang , Haoyang Hong , Chuanhao Li , Haoxuan Li , Zhiheng Zhang , Huazheng Wang

We study the piecewise-stationary restless multi-armed bandit (PS-RMAB) problem, where each arm evolves as a Markov chain but \emph{mean rewards may change across unknown segments}. To address the resulting exploration--detection delay…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Kuan-Ta Li , Chia-Chun Lin , Ping-Chun Hsieh , Yu-Chih Huang

The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problems are widely studied in fields of operations research, stochastic optimization, and reinforcement learning. In this paper, we consider the classical MAB model with heavy-tailed reward distributions and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-16 Keqin Liu , Tianshuo Zheng , Zhi-Hua Zhou

We consider minimisation of dynamic regret in non-stationary bandits with a slowly varying property. Namely, we assume that arms' rewards are stochastic and independent over time, but that the absolute difference between the expected…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Ramakrishnan Krishnamurthy , Aditya Gopalan

We generalize the multiple-play multi-armed bandits (MP-MAB) problem with a shareable arm setting, in which several plays can share the same arm. Furthermore, each shareable arm has a finite reward capacity and a ''per-load'' reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-20 Xuchuang Wang , Hong Xie , John C. S. Lui

We study the non-stationary stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, where the reward statistics of each arm may change several times during the course of learning. The performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated in terms of their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-09 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Andras Gyorgy , Nevena Lazic

We introduce algorithms that achieve state-of-the-art \emph{dynamic regret} bounds for non-stationary linear stochastic bandit setting. It captures natural applications such as dynamic pricing and ads allocation in a changing environment.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-20 Wang Chi Cheung , David Simchi-Levi , Ruihao Zhu

We study the multi-armed bandit problem with adversarially chosen delays in the Best-of-Both-Worlds (BoBW) framework, which aims to achieve near-optimal performance in both stochastic and adversarial environments. While prior work has made…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Ofir Schlisselberg , Tal Lancewicki , Peter Auer , Yishay Mansour

We consider a stochastic multi-armed bandit setting where reward must be actively queried for it to be observed. We provide tight lower and upper problem-dependent guarantees on both the regret and the number of queries. Interestingly, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-28 Nadav Merlis , Yonathan Efroni , Shie Mannor