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This paper studies an accelerated fitted value iteration (FVI) algorithm to solve high-dimensional Markov decision processes (MDPs). FVI is an approximate dynamic programming algorithm that has desirable theoretical properties. However, it…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-30 Sixiang Zhao , William B. Haskell , Michel-Alexandre Cardin

We consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs). For this purpose, some variant of Stochastic Mirror Descent is proposed for convex programming problems with Lipschitz-continuous…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-01 Daniil Tiapkin , Alexander Gasnikov

We develop stochastic first-order primal-dual algorithms to solve a class of convex-concave saddle-point problems. When the saddle function is strongly convex in the primal variable, we develop the first stochastic restart scheme for this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-04-13 Renbo Zhao

Stochastic Optimal Control Problems (SOCPs) plays a major role in the sequential decision-making challenges. There exist various iterative algorithms, under framework of stochastic maximum principle, that sequentially find the optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-17 Mohsen Amidzadeh

We study differentially private (DP) algorithms for stochastic convex optimization: the problem of minimizing the population loss given i.i.d. samples from a distribution over convex loss functions. A recent work of Bassily et al. (2019)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-12 Vitaly Feldman , Tomer Koren , Kunal Talwar

We introduce a new algorithm to solve constrained nonlinear optimal control problem, with an emphasis on low-thrust trajectory in highly nonlinear dynamics. The algorithm, dubbed Pontryagin-Bellman Differential Dynamic Programming (PDDP),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-27 Yanis Sidhoum , Kenshiro Oguri

This paper presents an algorithmic study and complexity analysis for solving distributionally robust multistage convex optimization (DR-MCO). We generalize the usual consecutive dual dynamic programming (DDP) algorithm to DR-MCO and propose…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-05 Shixuan Zhang , Xu Andy Sun

We propose a method of approximating multivariate Gaussian probabilities using dynamic programming. We show that solving the optimization problem associated with a class of discrete-time finite horizon Markov decision processes with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-08 Morgan Jones , Matthew M. Peet

We study online statistical inference for the solutions of stochastic optimization problems with equality and inequality constraints. Such problems are prevalent in statistics and machine learning, encompassing constrained $M$-estimation,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-12-11 Yihang Gao , Michael K. Ng , Michael W. Mahoney , Sen Na

This paper tackles the challenging problem of finding global optimal solutions for two-stage stochastic programs with continuous decision variables and nonconvex recourse functions. We introduce a two-phase approach. The first phase…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-29 Suhan Zhong , Ying Cui , Jiawang Nie

Consider convex optimization problems subject to a large number of constraints. We focus on stochastic problems in which the objective takes the form of expected values and the feasible set is the intersection of a large number of convex…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-11-13 Mengdi Wang , Yichen Chen , Jialin Liu , Yuantao Gu

Sample average approximation--based stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) and model predictive control (MPC) are two different methods for approaching multistage stochastic optimization. In this paper we investigate the conditions under…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-10 Dominic S. T. Keehan , Andrew B. Philpott , Edward J. Anderson

For minimizing a strongly convex objective function subject to linear inequality constraints, we consider a penalty approach that allows one to utilize stochastic methods for problems with a large number of constraints and/or objective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-16 Meng Li , Paul Grigas , Alper Atamturk

There is a recent surge of interest in nonconvex reformulations via low-rank factorization for stochastic convex semidefinite optimization problem in the purpose of efficiency and scalability. Compared with the original convex formulations,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-27 Jinshan Zeng , Ke Ma , Yuan Yao

Markov Decision Processes (MDP) is an useful framework to cast optimal sequential decision making problems. Given any MDP the aim is to find the optimal action selection mechanism i.e., the optimal policy. Typically, the optimal policy…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2014-03-18 Chandrashekar Lakshminarayanan , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We propose a novel methodology for solving a two-stage adjustable robust convex optimisation problem with a general (proximable) convex objective function and constraints defined by sum-of-squares (SOS) convex polynomials. These problems…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-17 Neil D. Dizon , Bethany I. Caldwell , Vaithilingam Jeyakumar , Guoyin Li

This paper discusses algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) that have monotone optimal policies. We propose a two-stage alternating convex optimization scheme that can accelerate the search for an optimal policy by…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-04-04 Robert Mattila , Cristian R. Rojas , Vikram Krishnamurthy , Bo Wahlberg

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…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-07-25 Shuchi Chawla , Dimitris Christou , Amit Harlev , Ziv Scully

We introduce a novel method for handling endpoint constraints in constrained differential dynamic programming (DDP). Unlike existing approaches, our method guarantees quadratic convergence and is exact, effectively managing rank…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-07 Maria Parilli , Sergi Martinez , Carlos Mastalli

In this paper, we study the relationship between general maximum principle and dynamic programming principle for risk-sensitive stochastic optimal control problems, where the control domain is not necessarily convex. The original problem is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Huanqing Dong , Jingtao Shi