Related papers: Performance Guarantees for Homomorphisms Beyond Ma…
Benchmark experiments are required to test, compare, tune, and understand optimization algorithms. Ideally, benchmark problems closely reflect real-world problem behavior. Yet, real-world problems are not always readily available for…
The precise characterization of dynamics in open quantum systems often presents significant challenges, leading to the introduction of various approximations to simplify a model. One commonly used strategy involves Markovian approximations,…
Reinforcement learning (RL) on high-dimensional and complex problems relies on abstraction for improved efficiency and generalization. In this paper, we study abstraction in the continuous-control setting, and extend the definition of…
Many recent theoretical works on \emph{meta-learning} aim to achieve guarantees in leveraging similar representational structures from related tasks towards simplifying a target task. The main aim of theoretical guarantees on the subject is…
In this paper, we show how a simulated Markov decision process (MDP) built by the so-called \emph{baseline} policies, can be used to compute a different policy, namely the \emph{simulated optimal} policy, for which the performance of this…
As evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are general-purpose optimization algorithms, recent theoretical studies have tried to analyze their performance for solving general problem classes, with the goal of providing a general theoretical…
Reinforcement learning is commonly concerned with problems of maximizing accumulated rewards in Markov decision processes. Oftentimes, a certain goal state or a subset of the state space attain maximal reward. In such a case, the…
Sample average approximation (SAA), a popular method for tractably solving stochastic optimization problems, enjoys strong asymptotic performance guarantees in settings with independent training samples. However, these guarantees are not…
How can agents learn internal models that veridically represent interactions with the real world is a largely open question. As machine learning is moving towards representations containing not just observational but also interventional…
Evolutionary multi-agent systems (EMASs) are very good at dealing with difficult, multi-dimensional problems, their efficacy was proven theoretically based on analysis of the relevant Markov-Chain based model. Now the research continues on…
Variational inequality problems allow for capturing an expansive class of problems, including convex optimization problems, convex Nash games and economic equilibrium problems, amongst others. Yet in most practical settings, such problems…
Problem solving (e.g., drug design, traffic engineering, software development) by task forces represents a substantial portion of the economy of developed countries. Here we use an agent-based model of cooperative problem solving systems to…
We define a broad class of deterministic stream functions and show they can be implemented as homomorphisms into a "state" monoid. The homomorphism laws are simpler than the conditions of previous semantic frameworks for stream program…
This paper presents a universal representation of symmetric (permutation-invariant) functions with multidimensional variable-size variables. These representations help justify approximation methods that aggregate information from each…
We consider solutions of normal form games that are invariant under strategic equivalence. We consider additional properties that can be expected (or be desired) from a solution of a game, and we observe the following: - Even the weakest…
Reinforcement learning (RL) problems are often phrased in terms of Markov decision processes (MDPs). In this thesis we go beyond MDPs and consider RL in environments that are non-Markovian, non-ergodic and only partially observable. Our…
Hierarchies are of fundamental interest in both stochastic optimal control and biological control due to their facilitation of a range of desirable computational traits in a control algorithm and the possibility that they may form a core…
How can a scientist use a Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm to design experiments over a dynamical system's state space? In the case of finite and Markovian systems, an area called Active Exploration (AE) relaxes the optimization…
In decision support systems, it is essential to get a candidate solution fast, even if it means resorting to an approximation. This constraint introduces a scalability requirement with regard to the kind of heuristics which can be used in…
Despite the occurrence of elegant algorithms for solving complex problem, exhaustive search has retained its significance since many real-life problems exhibit no regular structure and exhaustive search is the only possible solution. The…