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Stoppable families of alternative bandit processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

K. D. Glazebrook
K. D. Glazebrook*
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
*
∗Postal address: Department of Statistics, School of Mathematics, The University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, U.K.
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Abstract

Stoppable families of alternative bandit processes are decision processes with the property that at each decision epoch the choice is between allocating service to one of the constituent bandit processes or stopping and deciding in favour of one of them. The problem is considered of finding optimal (or good suboptimal) strategies for such processes. The theory for non-stoppable families leads us to study the performance of a simple strategy. This is shown to be optimal under certain conditions. These conditions are discussed and an example relating to research planning is given.

Keywords

ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTSFAMILY OF ALTERNATIVE BANDIT PROCESSESDYNAMIC ALLOCATION INDEXMARKOV DECISION PROCESS
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Applied Probability , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1979 , pp. 843 - 854
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1979 

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