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You're reading from  Hands-On Reinforcement Learning with Python

Product typeBook
Published inJun 2018
Reading LevelIntermediate
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781788836524
Edition1st Edition
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Author (1)
Sudharsan Ravichandiran
Sudharsan Ravichandiran
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Sudharsan Ravichandiran

Sudharsan Ravichandiran is a data scientist and artificial intelligence enthusiast. He holds a Bachelors in Information Technology from Anna University. His area of research focuses on practical implementations of deep learning and reinforcement learning including natural language processing and computer vision. He is an open-source contributor and loves answering questions on Stack Overflow.
Read more about Sudharsan Ravichandiran

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Contextual bandits

We just saw how bandits are used for recommending the correct ad banner to the user. But the banner preference varies from user to user. User A likes banner type 1, but user B might like banner type 3. So we have to personalize ad banners according to user behavior. How can we do that? We introduce a new bandit type called contextual bandits.

In a normal MABs problem, we perform the action and receive a reward. But with contextual bandits, instead of just taking the actions alone, we take the environment state as well. The state holds the context. Here, the state specifies the user behaviors, so we will take actions (show ads) according to the state (user behavior) that will result in a maximum reward (ad clicks). Thus, contextual bandits are widely used for personalizing content according to the user's preference behavior. They are used to solve cold-start...

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Hands-On Reinforcement Learning with Python
Published in: Jun 2018Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781788836524

Author (1)

author image
Sudharsan Ravichandiran

Sudharsan Ravichandiran is a data scientist and artificial intelligence enthusiast. He holds a Bachelors in Information Technology from Anna University. His area of research focuses on practical implementations of deep learning and reinforcement learning including natural language processing and computer vision. He is an open-source contributor and loves answering questions on Stack Overflow.
Read more about Sudharsan Ravichandiran