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We propose new sequential simulation-optimization algorithms for general convex optimization via simulation problems with high-dimensional discrete decision space. The performance of each choice of discrete decision variables is evaluated…
Many processes, such as discrete event systems in engineering or population dynamics in biology, evolve in discrete space and continuous time. We consider the problem of optimal decision making in such discrete state and action space…
This work develops novel strategies for optimal planning with semantic observations using continuous state partially observable markov decision processes (CPOMDPs). Two major innovations are presented in relation to Gaussian mixture (GM)…
This paper focuses on solving a stochastic saddle point problem (SPP) under an overparameterized regime for the case, when the gradient computation is impractical. As an intermediate step, we generalize Same-sample Stochastic Extra-gradient…
Policy gradient methods in reinforcement learning update policy parameters by taking steps in the direction of an estimated gradient of policy value. In this paper, we consider the statistically efficient estimation of policy gradients from…
We consider a finite-state partially observable Markov decision problem (POMDP) with an infinite horizon and a discounted cost, and we propose a new method for computing a cost function approximation that is based on features and…
Stochastic gradient descent procedures have gained popularity for parameter estimation from large data sets. However, their statistical properties are not well understood, in theory. And in practice, avoiding numerical instability requires…
We study a new two-time-scale stochastic gradient method for solving optimization problems, where the gradients are computed with the aid of an auxiliary variable under samples generated by time-varying MDPs controlled by the underlying…
POMDPs capture a broad class of decision making problems, but hardness results suggest that learning is intractable even in simple settings due to the inherent partial observability. However, in many realistic problems, more information is…
Autonomous systems are often required to operate in partially observable environments. They must reliably execute a specified objective even with incomplete information about the state of the environment. We propose a methodology to…
Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) model decision making under uncertainty. While there are many approaches to approximately solving POMDPs, we aim to address the problem of learning such models. In particular, we are…
In constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with adversarial rewards and constraints, a well-known impossibility result prevents any algorithm from attaining both sublinear regret and sublinear constraint violation, when competing…
In this paper, we investigate a general class of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithms, called Conditioned SGD, based on a preconditioning of the gradient direction. Using a discrete-time approach with martingale tools, we establish…
Stochastic coordinate descent algorithms are efficient methods in which each iterate is obtained by fixing most coordinates at their values from the current iteration, and approximately minimizing the objective with respect to the remaining…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…
Most exact algorithms for general partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) use a form of dynamic programming in which a piecewise-linear and convex representation of one value function is transformed into another. We examine…
We introduce a novel policy learning method that integrates analytical gradients from differentiable environments with the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm. To incorporate analytical gradients into the PPO framework, we…
Modern large-scale statistical models require to estimate thousands to millions of parameters. This is often accomplished by iterative algorithms such as gradient descent, projected gradient descent or their accelerated versions. What are…
The agent learns to organize decision behavior to achieve a behavioral goal, such as reward maximization, and reinforcement learning is often used for this optimization. Learning an optimal behavioral strategy is difficult under the…
Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are used to model environments where the full state cannot be perceived by an agent. As such the agent needs to reason taking into account the past observations and actions. However,…