English
Related papers

Related papers: Optimal Regret for Policy Optimization in Contextu…

200 papers

We consider a combinatorial multi-armed bandit problem for maximum value reward function under maximum value and index feedback. This is a new feedback structure that lies in between commonly studied semi-bandit and full-bandit feedback…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-26 Yiliu Wang , Wei Chen , Milan Vojnović

In this paper, we study the stochastic combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) framework that allows a general nonlinear reward function, whose expected value may not depend only on the means of the input random variables but possibly on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-07-23 Wei Chen , Wei Hu , Fu Li , Jian Li , Yu Liu , Pinyan Lu

We study the contextual continuum bandits problem, where the learner sequentially receives a side information vector and has to choose an action in a convex set, minimizing a function associated with the context. The goal is to minimize all…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-28 Arya Akhavan , Karim Lounici , Massimiliano Pontil , Alexandre B. Tsybakov

We consider the general (stochastic) contextual bandit problem under the realizability assumption, i.e., the expected reward, as a function of contexts and actions, belongs to a general function class $\mathcal{F}$. We design a fast and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-13 David Simchi-Levi , Yunzong Xu

We consider a multi-armed bandit problem where payoffs are a linear function of an observed stochastic contextual variable. In the scenario where there exists a gap between optimal and suboptimal rewards, several algorithms have been…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2014-07-08 José Bento , Stratis Ioannidis , S. Muthukrishnan , Jinyun Yan

Stochastic linear bandits are a fundamental model for sequential decision making, where an agent selects a vector-valued action and receives a noisy reward with expected value given by an unknown linear function. Although well studied in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Bruce Huang , Ruida Zhou , Lin F. Yang , Suhas Diggavi

We present a modified tuning of the algorithm of Zimmert and Seldin [2020] for adversarial multiarmed bandits with delayed feedback, which in addition to the minimax optimal adversarial regret guarantee shown by Zimmert and Seldin…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-01 Saeed Masoudian , Julian Zimmert , Yevgeny Seldin

We propose a linear contextual bandit algorithm with $O(\sqrt{dT\log T})$ regret bound, where $d$ is the dimension of contexts and $T$ isthe time horizon. Our proposed algorithm is equipped with a novel estimator in which exploration is…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-03-30 Wonyoung Kim , Myunghee Cho Paik , Min-hwan Oh

We introduce a latency-aware contextual bandit framework that generalizes the standard contextual bandit problem, where the learner adaptively selects arms and switches decision sets under action delays. In this setting, the learner…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-10 Lai Wei , Ambuj Tewari , Michael A. Cianfrocco

In several applications of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, the traditional objective of maximizing the expected total reward can be inappropriate. In this paper, motivated by certain operational concerns in online platforms, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-16 Eren Ozbay , Vijay Kamble

We consider a contextual bandit problem with a combinatorial action set and time-varying base arm availability. At the beginning of each round, the agent observes the set of available base arms and their contexts and then selects an action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-26 Andi Nika , Sepehr Elahi , Cem Tekin

We examine a multi-armed bandit problem with contextual information, where the objective is to ensure that each arm receives a minimum aggregated reward across contexts while simultaneously maximizing the total cumulative reward. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Ahmed Ben Yahmed , Hafedh El Ferchichi , Marc Abeille , Vianney Perchet

Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithms are a widely-used class of sequential algorithms for the $K$-armed bandit problem. Despite extensive research over the past decades aimed at understanding their asymptotic and (near) minimax…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-12-10 Qiyang Han , Koulik Khamaru , Cun-Hui Zhang

We consider linear stochastic bandits where the set of actions is an ellipsoid. We provide the first known minimax optimal algorithm for this problem. We first derive a novel information-theoretic lower bound on the regret of any algorithm,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-25 Raymond Zhang , Hedi Hadiji , Richard Combes

Recently a multi-agent variant of the classical multi-armed bandit was proposed to tackle fairness issues in online learning. Inspired by a long line of work in social choice and economics, the goal is to optimize the Nash social welfare…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-27 Matthew Jones , Huy Lê Nguyen , Thy Nguyen

In this paper, we introduce the notion of replicable policies in the context of stochastic bandits, one of the canonical problems in interactive learning. A policy in the bandit environment is called replicable if it pulls, with high…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-16 Hossein Esfandiari , Alkis Kalavasis , Amin Karbasi , Andreas Krause , Vahab Mirrokni , Grigoris Velegkas

In this paper we consider the adversarial contextual bandit problem in metric spaces. The paper "Nearest neighbour with bandit feedback" tackled this problem but when there are many contexts near the decision boundary of the comparator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Stephen Pasteris , Chris Hicks , Vasilios Mavroudis

We introduce a novel extension of the canonical multi-armed bandit problem that incorporates an additional strategic innovation: abstention. In this enhanced framework, the agent is not only tasked with selecting an arm at each time step,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Junwen Yang , Tianyuan Jin , Vincent Y. F. Tan

A major research direction in contextual bandits is to develop algorithms that are computationally efficient, yet support flexible, general-purpose function approximation. Algorithms based on modeling rewards have shown strong empirical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-14 Dylan J. Foster , Claudio Gentile , Mehryar Mohri , Julian Zimmert

In this paper, we analyze the continuous armed bandit problems for nonconvex cost functions under certain smoothness and sublevel set assumptions. We first derive an upper bound on the expected cumulative regret of a simple bin splitting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-31 Puning Zhao , Lifeng Lai