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We propose a new stochastic primal-dual optimization algorithm for planning in a large discounted Markov decision process with a generative model and linear function approximation. Assuming that the feature map approximately satisfies…
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…
In Bayesian probabilistic programming, a central problem is to estimate the normalised posterior distribution (NPD) of a probabilistic program with conditioning via score (a.k.a. observe) statements. Most previous approaches address this…
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…
A recent method for solving zero-sum partially observable stochastic games (zs-POSGs) embeds the original game into a new one called the occupancy Markov game. This reformulation allows applying Bellman's principle of optimality to solve…
The Burer-Monteiro method is one of the most widely used techniques for solving large-scale semidefinite programs (SDP). The basic idea is to solve a nonconvex program in $Y$, where $Y$ is an $n \times p$ matrix such that $X = Y Y^T$. In…
There is much interest in using partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) as a formal model for planning in stochastic domains. This paper is concerned with finding optimal policies for POMDPs. We propose several improvements…
Existing value function approximation methods have been successfully used in many applications, but they often lack useful a priori error bounds. We propose a new approximate bilinear programming formulation of value function approximation,…
Approximate Newton methods are a standard optimization tool which aim to maintain the benefits of Newton's method, such as a fast rate of convergence, whilst alleviating its drawbacks, such as computationally expensive calculation or…
In the theory of Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs), existence of optimal policies have in general been established via converting the original partially observed stochastic control problem to a fully observed one on the…
We introduce a new concept of approximation applicable to decision problems and functions, inspired by Bayesian probability. From the perspective of a Bayesian reasoner with limited computational resources, the answer to a problem that…
Robust optimization provides a principled and unified framework to model many problems in modern operations research and computer science applications, such as risk measures minimization and adversarially robust machine learning. To use a…
We consider the problem of learning an $\varepsilon$-optimal policy in a general class of continuous-space Markov decision processes (MDPs) having smooth Bellman operators. Given access to a generative model, we achieve rate-optimal sample…
Decision-making under uncertainty is a critical aspect of many practical autonomous systems due to incomplete information. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) offer a mathematically principled framework for formulating…
Given a compact parameter set $Y\subset R^p$, we consider polynomial optimization problems $(P_y$) on $R^n$ whose description depends on the parameter $y\inY$. We assume that one can compute all moments of some probability measure $\phi$ on…
The Metropolis process (MP) and Simulated Annealing (SA) are stochastic local search heuristics that are often used in solving combinatorial optimization problems. Despite significant interest, there are very few theoretical results…
This paper attempts to study the optimal stopping time for semi-Markov processes (SMPs) under the discount optimization criteria with unbounded cost rates. In our work, we introduce an explicit construction of the equivalent semi-Markov…
In a widely-studied class of multi-parametric optimization problems, the objective value of each solution is an affine function of real-valued parameters. Then, the goal is to provide an optimal solution set, i.e., a set containing an…
We study several questions related to diversifying search results. We give improved approximation algorithms in each of the following problems, together with some lower bounds. - We give a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for a…
The standard Dynamic Programming (DP) formulation can be used to solve Multi-Stage Optimization Problems (MSOP's) with additively separable objective functions. In this paper we consider a larger class of MSOP's with monotonically backward…