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We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic MDPs with adversarial full-information reward feedback and unknown fixed transition kernels. We propose two model-free policy optimization algorithms, POWER and POWER++, and establish…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-02 Yingjie Fei , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang , Qiaomin Xie

The problem of ranking/ordering instances, instead of simply classifying them, has recently gained much attention in machine learning. In this paper we formulate the ranking problem in a rigorous statistical framework. The goal is to learn…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-08-16 Stéphan Clémençon , Gábor Lugosi , Nicolas Vayatis

We consider the setting of online logistic regression and consider the regret with respect to the 2-ball of radius B. It is known (see [Hazan et al., 2014]) that any proper algorithm which has logarithmic regret in the number of samples…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-04 Rémi Jézéquel , Pierre Gaillard , Alessandro Rudi

Consider the sequential optimization of an expensive to evaluate and possibly non-convex objective function $f$ from noisy feedback, that can be considered as a continuum-armed bandit problem. Upper bounds on the regret performance of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-03-11 Sattar Vakili , Kia Khezeli , Victor Picheny

Online learning methods yield sequential regret bounds under minimal assumptions and provide in-expectation risk bounds for statistical learning. However, despite the apparent advantage of online guarantees over their statistical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Dirk van der Hoeven , Nikita Zhivotovskiy , Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi

Reinforcement learning (RL) has traditionally been understood from an episodic perspective; the concept of non-episodic RL, where there is no restart and therefore no reliable recovery, remains elusive. A fundamental question in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-31 Shuang Liu , Hao Su

In this work, we study algorithms for learning in infinite-horizon undiscounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) with function approximation. We first show that the regret analysis of the Politex algorithm (a version of regularized policy…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-26 Nevena Lazic , Dong Yin , Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Csaba Szepesvari

We study regret minimization in causal bandits under causal sufficiency where the underlying causal structure is not known to the agent. Previous work has focused on identifying the reward's parents and then applying classic bandit methods…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Mohammad Shahverdikondori , Jalal Etesami , Negar Kiyavash

This paper begins with a study on the dual representations of risk and regret measures and their impact on modeling multistage decision making under uncertainty. A relationship between risk envelopes and regret envelopes is established by…

Mathematical Finance · Quantitative Finance 2020-06-16 Jie Sun , Xinmin Yang , Qiang Yao , Min Zhang

The online meta-learning framework has arisen as a powerful tool for the continual lifelong learning setting. The goal for an agent is to quickly learn new tasks by drawing on prior experience, while it faces with tasks one after another.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-30 Parvin Nazari , Esmaile Khorram

We study non-rectangular robust Markov decision processes under the average-reward criterion, where the ambiguity set couples transition probabilities across states and the adversary commits to a stationary kernel for the entire horizon. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-11 Shengbo Wang , Nian Si

We study the framework of a dynamic decision-making scenario with resource constraints. In this framework, an agent, whose target is to maximize the total reward under the initial inventory, selects an action in each round upon observing a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-19 Zhaohua Chen , Rui Ai , Mingwei Yang , Yuqi Pan , Chang Wang , Xiaotie Deng

We study online inverse linear optimization, also known as contextual recommendation, where a learner sequentially infers an agent's hidden objective vector from observed optimal actions over feasible sets that change over time. The learner…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Taihei Oki , Shinsaku Sakaue

Policy Optimization (PO) methods are among the most popular Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms in practice. Recently, Sherman et al. [2023a] proposed a PO-based algorithm with rate-optimal regret guarantees under the linear Markov…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-04 Asaf Cassel , Aviv Rosenberg

We consider the problem of contextual bandits where actions are subsets of a ground set and mean rewards are modeled by an unknown monotone submodular function that belongs to a class $\mathcal{F}$. We allow time-varying matroid constraints…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-07 Dean P. Foster , Alexander Rakhlin

We study episodic reinforcement learning under unknown adversarial corruptions in both the rewards and the transition probabilities of the underlying system. We propose new algorithms which, compared to the existing results in (Lykouris et…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-09 Yifang Chen , Simon S. Du , Kevin Jamieson

The goal of a learner in standard online learning is to maintain an average loss close to the loss of the best-performing single function in some class. In many real-world problems, such as rating or ranking items, there is no single best…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-03-18 Edward Moroshko , Koby Crammer

In this paper, we study gap-dependent regret guarantees for risk-sensitive reinforcement learning based on the entropic risk measure. We propose a novel definition of sub-optimality gaps, which we call cascaded gaps, and we discuss their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-08 Yingjie Fei , Ruitu Xu

This paper investigates regret minimization, statistical inference, and their interplay in high-dimensional online decision-making based on the sparse linear context bandit model. We integrate the $\varepsilon$-greedy bandit algorithm for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Congyuan Duan , Wanteng Ma , Jiashuo Jiang , Dong Xia

We consider the online convex optimization problem. In the setting of arbitrary sequences and finite set of parameters, we establish a new fast-rate quantile regret bound. Then we investigate the optimization into the L1-ball by…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-05-24 Pierre Gaillard , Olivier Wintenberger