Related papers: A two armed bandit type problem revisited
Although many algorithms for the multi-armed bandit problem are well-understood theoretically, empirical confirmation of their effectiveness is generally scarce. This paper presents a thorough empirical study of the most popular multi-armed…
In this paper, we study the problem of bandits with knapsacks (BwK) in a non-stationary environment. The BwK problem generalizes the multi-arm bandit (MAB) problem to model the resource consumption associated with playing each arm. At each…
The Greedy algorithm is the simplest heuristic in sequential decision problem that carelessly takes the locally optimal choice at each round, disregarding any advantages of exploring and/or information gathering. Theoretically, it is known…
We define a novel family of algorithms for the adversarial multi-armed bandit problem, and provide a simple analysis technique based on convex smoothing. We prove two main results. First, we show that regularization via the \emph{Tsallis…
The problem of rested and restless multi-armed bandits with constrained availability of arms is considered. The states of arms evolve in Markovian manner and the exact states are hidden from the decision maker. First, some structural…
Motivated by applications such as online labor markets we consider a variant of the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem where we have a collection of arms representing strategic agents with different performance characteristics. The…
Motivated by emerging applications such as live-streaming e-commerce, promotions and recommendations, we introduce and solve a general class of non-stationary multi-armed bandit problems that have the following two features: (i) the…
This paper considers the problem of combinatorial multi-armed bandits with semi-bandit feedback and a cardinality constraint on the super-arm size. Existing algorithms for solving this problem typically involve two key sub-routines: (1) a…
We develop a novel and generic algorithm for the adversarial multi-armed bandit problem (or more generally the combinatorial semi-bandit problem). When instantiated differently, our algorithm achieves various new data-dependent regret…
The Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework highlights the tension between acquiring new knowledge (Exploration) and leveraging available knowledge (Exploitation). In the classical MAB problem, a decision maker must choose an arm at each time…
In recent years, multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework has attracted a lot of attention in various applications, from recommender systems and information retrieval to healthcare and finance, due to its stellar performance combined with certain…
We study the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem in the $P$-pass streaming model. In this problem, the $n$ arms are present in a stream and at most $m<n$ arms and their statistics can be stored in the memory. We give a complete…
We consider the problem of distributed online learning with multiple players in multi-armed bandits (MAB) models. Each player can pick among multiple arms. When a player picks an arm, it gets a reward. We consider both i.i.d. reward model…
Consider a multi-phase project management problem where the decision maker needs to deal with two issues: (a) how to allocate resources to projects within each phase, and (b) when to enter the next phase, so that the total expected reward…
Multi-armed bandits (MAB) model sequential decision making problems, in which a learner sequentially chooses arms with unknown reward distributions in order to maximize its cumulative reward. Most of the prior work on MAB assumes that the…
Bandit problems model the trade-off between exploration and exploitation in various decision problems. We study two-armed bandit problems in continuous time, where the risky arm can have two types: High or Low; both types yield stochastic…
This paper introduces the framework of multi-armed sampling, which serves as the sampling counterpart to the optimization problem of multi-armed bandits. Our primary motivation is to rigorously examine the exploration-exploitation trade-off…
Pure exploration in multi-armed bandits has emerged as an important framework for modeling decision-making and search under uncertainty. In modern applications, however, one is often faced with a tremendously large number of options. Even…
We present an approach to Intelligent Tutoring Systems which adaptively personalizes sequences of learning activities to maximize skills acquired by students, taking into account the limited time and motivational resources. At a given point…
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…