Related papers: Convergence Analysis of the Approximate Newton Met…

In this article, we propose a quasi-Newton method for unconstrained set optimization problems to find its weakly minimal solutions with respect to lower set-less ordering. The set-valued objective mapping under consideration is given by a…

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…

Fixpoints are ubiquitous in computer science and when dealing with quantitative semantics and verification one often considers least fixpoints of (higher-dimensional) functions over the non-negative reals. We show how to approximate the…

A convergence analysis is developed for the regularized Newton method for training neural networks (NNs) in the overparameterized limit. As the number of hidden units tends to infinity, the NN training dynamics converge in probability to…

For a countable-state Markov decision process we introduce an embedding which produces a finite-state Markov decision process. The finite-state embedded process has the same optimal cost, and moreover, it has the same dynamics as the…

The problem of constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) is investigated, where an agent aims to maximize the expected accumulated discounted reward subject to multiple constraints on its utilities/costs. A new primal-dual approach is…

We consider synthesis of control policies that maximize the probability of satisfying given temporal logic specifications in unknown, stochastic environments. We model the interaction between the system and its environment as a Markov…

We present a finite-time analysis of two smoothed functional stochastic approximation algorithms for simulation-based optimization. The first is a two time-scale gradient-based method, while the second is a three time-scale Newton-based…

A Markov decision problem is called reversible if the stationary controlled Markov chain is reversible under every stationary Markovian strategy. A natural application in which such problems arise is in the control of Metropolis-Hastings…

Bayesian optimization is a methodology to optimize black-box functions. Traditionally, it focuses on the setting where you can arbitrarily query the search space. However, many real-life problems do not offer this flexibility; in…

It is common, when dealing with quantum processes involving a subsystem of a much larger composite closed system, to treat them as effectively memory-less (Markovian). While open systems theory tells us that non-Markovian processes should…

We propose a novel randomized linear programming algorithm for approximating the optimal policy of the discounted Markov decision problem. By leveraging the value-policy duality and binary-tree data structures, the algorithm adaptively…

We study a new model-free algorithm to compute $\varepsilon$-optimal policies for average reward Markov decision processes, in the weakly communicating case. Given a generative model, our procedure combines a recursive sampling technique…

We develop a stochastic approximation-type algorithm to solve finite state/action, infinite-horizon, risk-aware Markov decision processes. Our algorithm has two loops. The inner loop computes the risk by solving a stochastic saddle-point…

In this paper, we consider an unconstrained optimization model where the objective is a sum of a large number of possibly nonconvex functions, though overall the objective is assumed to be smooth and convex. Our bid to solving such model…

We provide performance guarantees for a variant of simulation-based policy iteration for controlling Markov decision processes that involves the use of stochastic approximation algorithms along with state-of-the-art techniques that are…

A dynamical system may be defined by a simple transition law - such as a map or a vector field. The objective of most learning techniques is to reconstruct this dynamic transition law. This is a major shortcoming, as most dynamic properties…

This paper studies a large number of homogeneous Markov decision processes where the transition probabilities and costs are coupled in the empirical distribution of states (also called mean-field). The state of each process is not known to…

In dynamic programming and reinforcement learning, the policy for the sequential decision making of an agent in a stochastic environment is usually determined by expressing the goal as a scalar reward function and seeking a policy that…

Model predictive control (MPC) is widely used in process control due to its interpretability and ability to handle constraints. As a parametric policy in reinforcement learning (RL), MPC offers strong initial performance and low data…