arXiv Machine Learning

Multi-Armed Sequential Hypothesis Testing by Betting

arXiv:2603. 17925v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We consider a variant of sequential testing by betting where, at each time step, the statistician is presented with multiple data sources (arms) and obtains data by choosing one of the arms.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 3

Parameter-Free Heavy-Tailed Bandits

arXiv:2607. 29460v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Heavy-tailed distributions arise naturally in sequential decision-making problems such as financial investment, online advertising, and network management, where rare but extreme outcomes can dominate performance.

By Gianmarco Genalti, Alberto Maria Metelli
arXiv Machine Learning
1d ago

Online Generalized-Mean Welfare Maximization: Achieving Near-Optimal Regret from Samples

The paper investigates online fair allocation of sequential items to agents with heterogeneous preferences, aiming to maximize generalized-mean welfare. In an i.i.d. arrival setting, a pure greedy algorithm achieves near-optimal “~O(1/T)” average regret without needing distributional knowledge. For nonstationary arrivals, the authors show that a single historical sample per distribution suffices to recover the same regret rate, using re-solving algorithms that remain robust to distribution shifts.

By Zongjun Yang, Rachitesh Kumar, Christian Kroer
arXiv AI
6d ago

Dynamic Welfare-Maximizing Pooled Testing

The paper studies a budget‑constrained welfare problem for pooled testing, where agents have heterogeneous utilities and independent probabilities of being healthy. It proves that an optimal dynamic testing policy can achieve at most twice the welfare of the best static overlapping allocation, regardless of population, budget, or pool‑size limit. The authors also identify cases where adaptivity offers no benefit, show that re‑pooling after positive tests is necessary for strict gains, and provide approximation guarantees for greedy algorithms.

By Edwin Lock, Nicholas Lopez, Francisco Marmolejo-Coss\'io, Jose Roberto Tello Ayala, David C. Parkes