English
Related papers

Related papers: Optimal Timing of Decisions: A General Theory Base…

200 papers

This paper provides necessary conditions of optimality for optimal control problems with time delays in both state and control variables. Different versions of the necessary conditions cover fixed end-time problems and, under additional…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2017-01-09 Andrea Boccia , Richard B. Vinter

We consider policy gradient methods for stochastic optimal control problem in continuous time. In particular, we analyze the gradient flow for the control, viewed as a continuous time limit of the policy gradient method. We prove the global…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-15 Mo Zhou , Jianfeng Lu

Learning in a lifelong setting, where the dynamics continually evolve, is a hard challenge for current reinforcement learning algorithms. Yet this would be a much needed feature for practical applications. In this paper, we propose an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-14 Pierre Liotet , Francesco Vidaich , Alberto Maria Metelli , Marcello Restelli

Planning and Learning are complementary approaches. Planning relies on deliberative reasoning about the current state and sequence of future reachable states to solve the problem. Learning, on the other hand, is focused on improving system…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-11 Zlatan Ajanovic , Halil Beglerovic , Bakir Lacevic

This paper develops a set of simplified dynamical models with which to explore the conditions under which temporal differentiation leads to optimized system output. By temporal differentiation, we mean a division of labor whereby different…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2007-05-23 Emmanuel Tannenbaum

Continual learning aims to enable models to adapt to new datasets without losing performance on previously learned data, often assuming that prior data is no longer available. However, in many practical scenarios, both old and new data are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-03 Eli Verwimp , Guy Hacohen , Tinne Tuytelaars

We study optimal perfect distinguishability between a unitary and a general quantum operation. In 2-dimensional case we provide a simple sufficient and necessary condition for sequential perfect distinguishability and an analytical formula…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-10-13 Cheng Lu , Jianxin Chen , Runyao Duan

Optimising queries in real-world situations under imperfect conditions is still a problem that has not been fully solved. We consider finding the optimal order in which to execute a given set of selection operators under partial ignorance…

Databases · Computer Science 2015-07-30 Khaled H. Alyoubi , Sven Helmer , Peter T. Wood

We consider a class of optimization problems that involve determining the maximum value that a function in a particular class can attain subject to a collection of difference constraints. We show that a particular linear programming…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-11-16 Sungjin Im , Benjamin Moseley , Hung Q. Ngo , Kirk Pruhs , Alireza Samadian

In many important applications of precision medicine, the outcome of interest is time to an event (e.g., death, relapse of disease) and the primary goal is to identify the optimal individualized decision rule (IDR) to prolong survival time.…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-04-11 Yu Zhou , Lan Wang , Rui Song , Tuoyi Zhao

Differential temporal difference (TD) methods are value-based reinforcement learning algorithms that have been proposed for infinite-horizon problems. They rely on reward centering, where each reward is centered by the average reward. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-07 Kris De Asis , Mohamed Elsayed , Jiamin He

Motion planning and control problems are embedded and essential in almost all robotics applications. These problems are often formulated as stochastic optimal control problems and solved using dynamic programming algorithms. Unfortunately,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2018-01-12 Alex A. Gorodetsky , Sertac Karaman , Youssef M. Marzouk

We consider dynamic programming problems with a large time horizon, and give sufficient conditions for the existence of the uniform value. As a consequence, we obtain an existence result when the state space is precompact, payoffs are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2009-04-20 Jérôme Renault

We consider the differentiation of the value function for parametric optimization problems. Such problems are ubiquitous in Machine Learning applications such as structured support vector machines, matrix factorization and min-min or…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-29 Sheheryar Mehmood , Peter Ochs

This paper is concerned with a stochastic recursive optimal control problem with time delay, where the controlled system is described by a stochastic differential delayed equation (SDDE) and the cost functional is formulated as the solution…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-08-26 Jingtao Shi , Huanshui Zhang

In this paper we study a single machine scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing the sum of completion times. Each of the given jobs is either short or long. However the processing times are initially hidden to the algorithm, but…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-05-06 Fanny Dufossé , Christoph Dürr , Noël Nadal , Denis Trystram , Óscar C. Vásquez

Classical optimization theory deals with fixed, time-invariant objective functions. However, time-varying optimization has emerged as an important subject for decision-making in dynamic environments. In this work, we study the problem of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Muhammad Faraz Ul Abrar , Nicolò Michelusi , Erik G. Larsson

In this work we consider a new interpretation of fairness in decision making problems. Building upon existing fairness formulations, we focus on how to reason over fairness from a temporal perspective, taking into account the fairness of a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-08-26 Manuel R. Torres , Parisa Zehtabi , Michael Cashmore , Daniele Magazzeni , Manuela Veloso

Along the optimal trajectory of an optimal control problem constrained by a semilinear parabolic partial differential equation, we prove the differentiability of the value function with respect to the initial condition and, under additional…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-19 Alberto Domínguez Corella , Nicolai Jork , Stefan Volkwein

Value iteration is a fixed point iteration technique utilized to obtain the optimal value function and policy in a discounted reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). Here, a contraction operator is constructed and applied repeatedly to arrive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-21 Chandramouli Kamanchi , Raghuram Bharadwaj Diddigi , Shalabh Bhatnagar