Related papers: Stochastic optimization on continuous domains with…
We elaborate the idea behind Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods in a mathematically coherent, yet simple and understandable way. To this end, we proof a pivotal convergence theorem for finite Markov chains and a minimal version of the…
Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are often deemed too computationally intensive to be of any practical use for big data applications, and in particular for inference on datasets containing a large number $n$ of individual data points, also…
We address the problem of parameter estimation for diffusion driven stochastic volatility models through Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). To avoid degeneracy issues we introduce an innovative reparametrisation defined through…
This paper studies the distributed optimization problem with possibly nonidentical local constraints, where its global objective function is composed of $N$ convex functions. The aim is to solve the considered optimization problem in a…
We propose a novel distribution-free scheme to solve optimization problems where the goal is to minimize the expected value of a cost function subject to probabilistic constraints. Unlike standard sampling-based methods, our idea consists…
We develop a novel procedure for estimating the optimizer of general convex stochastic optimization problems of the form $\min_{x\in\mathcal{X}} \mathbb{E}[F(x,\xi)]$, when the given data is a finite independent sample selected according to…
In this work, we investigate the optimal control problem for continuous-time Markov decision processes with the random impact of the environment. We provide conditions to show the existence of optimal controls under finite-horizon criteria.…
We consider a class of discrete time stochastic control problems motivated by some financial applications. We use a pathwise stochastic control approach to provide a dual formulation of the problem. This enables us to develop a numerical…
Performing numerical integration when the integrand itself cannot be evaluated point-wise is a challenging task that arises in statistical analysis, notably in Bayesian inference for models with intractable likelihood functions. Markov…
This paper studies an optimal control problem for continuous-time stochastic systems subject to reachability objectives specified in a subclass of metric interval temporal logic specifications, a temporal logic with real-time constraints.…
In this paper, we develop approximate dynamic programming methods for stochastic systems modeled as Markov Decision Processes, given both soft performance criteria and hard constraints in a class of probabilistic temporal logic called…
Stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) methods are Bayesian analogs to popular stochastic optimization methods; however, this connection is not well studied. We explore this relationship by applying simulated annealing to an…
This work introduces a stochastic model predictive control scheme for dynamic chance constraints. We consider linear discrete-time systems affected by unbounded additive stochastic disturbance. To synthesize an optimal controller, we solve…
We introduce an efficient numerical implementation of a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to sample a probability distribution on a manifold (introduced theoretically in Zappa, Holmes-Cerfon, Goodman (2018)), where the manifold is defined by…
In this paper we study a class of time-inconsistent terminal Markovian control problems in discrete time subject to model uncertainty. We combine the concept of the sub-game perfect strategies with the adaptive robust stochastic to tackle…
Discrete time stochastic optimal control problems and Markov decision processes (MDPs), respectively, serve as fundamental models for problems that involve sequential decision making under uncertainty and as such constitute the theoretical…
Binary optimization has a wide range of applications in combinatorial optimization problems such as MaxCut, MIMO detection, and MaxSAT. However, these problems are typically NP-hard due to the binary constraints. We develop a novel…
The goal of this paper is to study convergence and error estimates of the Monte Carlo method for the Navier-Stokes equations with random data. To discretize in space and time, the Monte Carlo method is combined with a suitable deterministic…
We study local complexity measures for stochastic convex optimization problems, providing a local minimax theory analogous to that of H\'{a}jek and Le Cam for classical statistical problems. We give complementary optimality results,…
The problem of optimally scaling the proposal distribution in a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is critical to the quality of the generated samples. Much work has gone into obtaining such results for various Metropolis-Hastings (MH)…