English
Related papers

Related papers: Batched Kernelized Bandits: Refinements and Extens…

200 papers

We study batched nonparametric contextual bandits under a margin condition when the margin parameter $\alpha$ is unknown. To capture the statistical cost of this ignorance, we introduce the regret inflation criterion, defined as the ratio…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-11-12 Rong Jiang , Cong Ma

Most bandit algorithm designs are purely theoretical. Therefore, they have strong regret guarantees, but also are often too conservative in practice. In this work, we pioneer the idea of algorithm design by minimizing the empirical Bayes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-12 Chih-Wei Hsu , Branislav Kveton , Ofer Meshi , Martin Mladenov , Csaba Szepesvari

In continuum-armed bandit problems where the underlying function resides in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), namely, the kernelised bandit problems, an important open problem remains of how well learning algorithms can adapt if…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-04-28 Yusha Liu , Aarti Singh

We consider distributed kernel bandits where $N$ agents aim to collaboratively maximize an unknown reward function that lies in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space. Each agent sequentially queries the function to obtain noisy observations at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-21 Nikola Pavlovic , Sudeep Salgia , Qing Zhao

We study the regret minimization problem in the novel setting of generalized kernelized bandits (GKBs), where we optimize an unknown function $f^*$ belonging to a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) having access to samples generated by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-12 Alberto Maria Metelli , Simone Drago , Marco Mussi

Recent studies have shown that reinforcement learning with KL-regularized objectives can enjoy faster rates of convergence or logarithmic regret, in contrast to the classical $\sqrt{T}$-type regret in the unregularized setting. However, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Kaixuan Ji , Qingyue Zhao , Heyang Zhao , Qiwei Di , Quanquan Gu

We consider optimizing a function network in the noise-free grey-box setting with RKHS function classes, where the exact intermediate results are observable. We assume that the structure of the network is known (but not the underlying…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-05-14 Zihan Li , Jonathan Scarlett

We study the $K$-armed contextual dueling bandit problem, a sequential decision making setting in which the learner uses contextual information to make two decisions, but only observes \emph{preference-based feedback} suggesting that one…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-25 Aadirupa Saha , Akshay Krishnamurthy

We study a nonparametric contextual bandit problem where the expected reward functions belong to a H\"older class with smoothness parameter $\beta$. We show how this interpolates between two extremes that were previously studied in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-14 Yichun Hu , Nathan Kallus , Xiaojie Mao

Kernelized bandits, also known as Bayesian optimization (BO), has been a prevalent method for optimizing complicated black-box reward functions. Various BO algorithms have been theoretically shown to enjoy upper bounds on their cumulative…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Zhongxiang Dai , Gregory Kang Ruey Lau , Arun Verma , Yao Shu , Bryan Kian Hsiang Low , Patrick Jaillet

Contextual bandits are a rich model for sequential decision making given side information, with important applications, e.g., in recommender systems. We propose novel algorithms for contextual bandits harnessing neural networks to…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-03-01 Parnian Kassraie , Andreas Krause

Recently, several studies (Zhou et al., 2021a; Zhang et al., 2021b; Kim et al., 2021; Zhou and Gu, 2022) have provided variance-dependent regret bounds for linear contextual bandits, which interpolates the regret for the worst-case regime…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Heyang Zhao , Jiafan He , Dongruo Zhou , Tong Zhang , Quanquan Gu

This paper studies batched bandit learning problems for nondegenerate functions. We introduce an algorithm that solves the batched bandit problem for nondegenerate functions near-optimally. More specifically, we introduce an algorithm,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-09 Yu Liu , Yunlu Shu , Tianyu Wang

Designing efficient general-purpose contextual bandit algorithms that work with large -- or even continuous -- action spaces would facilitate application to important scenarios such as information retrieval, recommendation systems, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-14 Yinglun Zhu , Paul Mineiro

We consider the problem of optimizing a black-box function based on noisy bandit feedback. Kernelized bandit algorithms have shown strong empirical and theoretical performance for this problem. They heavily rely on the assumption that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-10 Ilija Bogunovic , Andreas Krause

We consider the stochastic bandit problem with a continuous set of arms, with the expected reward function over the arms assumed to be fixed but unknown. We provide two new Gaussian process-based algorithms for continuous bandit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-05-18 Sayak Ray Chowdhury , Aditya Gopalan

We study the optimal batch-regret tradeoff for batch linear contextual bandits. For any batch number $M$, number of actions $K$, time horizon $T$, and dimension $d$, we provide an algorithm and prove its regret guarantee, which, due to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Zihan Zhang , Xiangyang Ji , Yuan Zhou

In performative prediction, the deployment of a predictive model triggers a shift in the data distribution. As these shifts are typically unknown ahead of time, the learner needs to deploy a model to get feedback about the distribution it…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-19 Meena Jagadeesan , Tijana Zrnic , Celestine Mendler-Dünner

Consider the sequential optimization of a continuous, possibly non-convex, and expensive to evaluate objective function $f$. The problem can be cast as a Gaussian Process (GP) bandit where $f$ lives in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-08-23 Sattar Vakili , Nacime Bouziani , Sepehr Jalali , Alberto Bernacchia , Da-shan Shiu

In this paper, we consider the multi-armed bandit problem with high-dimensional features. First, we prove a minimax lower bound, $\mathcal{O}\big((\log d)^{\frac{\alpha+1}{2}}T^{\frac{1-\alpha}{2}}+\log T\big)$, for the cumulative regret,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-27 Ke Li , Yun Yang , Naveen N. Narisetty