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We introduce biased gradient oracles to capture a setting where the function measurements have an estimation error that can be controlled through a batch size parameter. Our proposed oracles are appealing in several practical contexts, for…
In certain situations that shall be undoubtedly more and more common in the Big Data era, the datasets available are so massive that computing statistics over the full sample is hardly feasible, if not unfeasible. A natural approach in this…
We investigate partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with cost functions regularized by entropy terms describing state, observation, and control uncertainty. Standard POMDP techniques are shown to offer bounded-error…
Gradient algorithms are classical in adaptive control and parameter estimation. For instantaneous quadratic cost functions they lead to a linear time-varying dynamic system that converges exponentially under persistence of excitation…
In this paper, we propose a proximal gradient method and an accelerated proximal gradient method for solving composite optimization problems, where the objective function is the sum of a smooth and a convex, possibly nonsmooth, function. We…
We consider finite model approximations of discrete-time partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) under the discounted cost criterion. After converting the original partially observed stochastic control problem to a fully…
Recent studies have shown that many nonconvex machine learning problems satisfy a generalized-smooth condition that extends beyond traditional smooth nonconvex optimization. However, the existing algorithms are not fully adapted to such…
Safety in stochastic control systems, which are subject to random noise with a known probability distribution, aims to compute policies that satisfy predefined operational constraints with high confidence throughout the uncertain evolution…
Gaussian Process (GP) models are a powerful tool in probabilistic machine learning with a solid theoretical foundation. Thanks to current advances, modeling complex data with GPs is becoming increasingly feasible, which makes them an…
We study the risk-sensitive exponential cost MDP formulation and develop a trajectory-based gradient algorithm to find the stationary point of the cost associated with a set of parameterized policies. We derive a formula that can be used to…
Randomization is a powerful technique to create robust controllers, in particular in partially observable settings. The degrees of randomization have a significant impact on the system performance, yet they are intricate to get right. The…
Model-based reinforcement learning is attractive for sequential decision-making because it explicitly estimates reward and transition models and then supports planning through simulated rollouts. In offline settings with hidden confounding,…
Hybrid quantum-classical optimization algorithms represent one of the most promising application for near-term quantum computers. In these algorithms the goal is to optimize an observable quantity with respect to some classical parameters,…
This paper proposes a novel termination criterion, termed the advantage gap function, for finite state and action Markov decision processes (MDP) and reinforcement learning (RL). By incorporating this advantage gap function into the design…
In many real-world decision problems there is partially observed, hidden or latent information that remains fixed throughout an interaction. Such decision problems can be modeled as Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs), where a latent…
We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…
An algorithmic decision-maker incentivizes people to act in certain ways to receive better decisions. These incentives can dramatically influence subjects' behaviors and lives, and it is important that both decision-makers and…
Solving Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) is hard. Learning optimal controllers for POMDPs when the model is unknown is harder. Online learning of optimal controllers for unknown POMDPs, which requires efficient…
We consider the task of enforcing individual fairness in gradient boosting. Gradient boosting is a popular method for machine learning from tabular data, which arise often in applications where algorithmic fairness is a concern. At a high…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (minimize…