Non-Stationary Online Resource Allocation: Learning from a Single Sample
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Abstract (arXiv)
We study online resource allocation under non-stationary demand with a minimum offline data requirement. In this problem, a decision-maker must allocate multiple types of resources to sequentially arriving queries over a finite horizon. Each query belongs to a finite set of types with fixed resource consumption and a stochastic reward drawn from an unknown, type-specific distribution. Critically, the environment exhibits arbitrary non-stationarity -- arrival distributions may shift unpredictably-while the algorithm requires only one historical sample per period to operate effectively. We distinguish two settings based on sample informativeness: (i) reward-observed samples containing both query type and reward realization, and (ii) the more challenging type-only samples revealing only query type information. We propose a novel type-dependent quantile-based meta-policy that decouples the problem into modular components: reward distribution estimation, optimization of target service probabilities via fluid relaxation, and real-time decisions through dynamic acceptance thresholds. For reward-observed samples, our static threshold policy achieves tildeO(√T) regret. For type-only samples, we first establish that sublinear regret is impossible without additional structure; under a mild minimum-arrival-probability assumption, we design both a partially adaptive policy attaining the same tildeO(T) bound and, more significantly, a fully adaptive resolving policy with careful rounding that achieves the first poly-logarithmic regret guarantee of O((log T)3) for non-stationary multi-resource allocation. Our framework advances prior work by operating with minimal offline data (one sample per period), handling arbitrary non-stationarity without variation-budget assumptions, and supporting multiple resource constraints.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 32 of its 56 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Feb 2026.
Builds on
32 of 56 references.
References · 32
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20 more
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- 2019Online Learning and Matching for Resource Allocation Problemscited by 1
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