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We present a new algorithm based on posterior sampling for learning in constrained Markov decision processes (CMDP) in the infinite-horizon undiscounted setting. The algorithm achieves near-optimal regret bounds while being advantageous…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-28 Danil Provodin , Pratik Gajane , Mykola Pechenizkiy , Maurits Kaptein

In constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with adversarial rewards and constraints, a well-known impossibility result prevents any algorithm from attaining both sublinear regret and sublinear constraint violation, when competing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-27 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Anna Lunghi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We present an efficient reinforcement learning algorithm that learns the optimal admission control policy in a partially observable queueing network. Specifically, only the arrival and departure times from the network are observable, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-07 Jonatha Anselmi , Bruno Gaujal , Louis-Sébastien Rebuffi

We study variance-dependent regret bounds for Markov decision processes (MDPs). Algorithms with variance-dependent regret guarantees can automatically exploit environments with low variance (e.g., enjoying constant regret on deterministic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Runlong Zhou , Zihan Zhang , Simon S. Du

We derive a novel asymptotic problem-dependent lower-bound for regret minimization in finite-horizon tabular Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While, similar to prior work (e.g., for ergodic MDPs), the lower-bound is the solution to an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-25 Andrea Tirinzoni , Matteo Pirotta , Alessandro Lazaric

In this paper, we study a class of revenue management problems where the decision maker aims to maximize the total revenue subject to budget constraints on multiple type of resources over a finite horizon. At each time, a new…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-18 Guanting Chen , Xiaocheng Li , Yinyu Ye

We study reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the finite-horizon episodic setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, the inter-transition times of a continuous-time MDP are exponentially…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-04 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou

This paper presents new \emph{variance-aware} confidence sets for linear bandits and linear mixture Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). With the new confidence sets, we obtain the follow regret bounds: For linear bandits, we obtain an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-01 Zihan Zhang , Jiaqi Yang , Xiangyang Ji , Simon S. Du

Optimal regret bounds for Multi-Armed Bandit problems are now well documented. They can be classified into two categories based on the growth rate with respect to the time horizon $T$: (i) small, distribution-dependent, bounds of order of…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-04-12 Arthur Flajolet , Patrick Jaillet

We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Aldo Pacchiano , Christoph Dann , Claudio Gentile , Peter Bartlett

We consider model selection in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. Given a set of base learning algorithms, an effective model selection strategy adapts to the best learning algorithm in an online fashion. We show that by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-11 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Aldo Pacchiano , My Phan

Recently, several studies (Zhou et al., 2021a; Zhang et al., 2021b; Kim et al., 2021; Zhou and Gu, 2022) have provided variance-dependent regret bounds for linear contextual bandits, which interpolates the regret for the worst-case regime…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Heyang Zhao , Jiafan He , Dongruo Zhou , Tong Zhang , Quanquan Gu

This paper addresses an online convex optimization problem where the cost function at each step depends on a history of past decisions (i.e., memory), and the decision maker has access to limited predictions of future cost values within a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-29 Zhengmiao Wang , Zhi-Wei Liu , Ming Chi , Xiaoling Wang , Housheng Su , Lintao Ye

Unlike classical control theory, such as Linear Quadratic Control (LQC), real-world control problems are highly complex. These problems often involve adversarial perturbations, bandit feedback models, and non-quadratic, adversarially chosen…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-03 Y. Jennifer Sun , Zhou Lu

Recent literature has made much progress in understanding \emph{online LQR}: a modern learning-theoretic take on the classical control problem in which a learner attempts to optimally control an unknown linear dynamical system with fully…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-06 Max Simchowitz

We study online learning in constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) in which rewards and constraints may be either stochastic or adversarial. In such settings, Stradi et al.(2024) proposed the first best-of-both-worlds algorithm able…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-10 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Anna Lunghi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We consider undiscounted reinforcement learning in Markov decision processes (MDPs) where both the reward functions and the state-transition probabilities may vary (gradually or abruptly) over time. For this problem setting, we propose an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-11 Pratik Gajane , Ronald Ortner , Peter Auer

In the online non-stochastic control problem, an agent sequentially selects control inputs for a linear dynamical system when facing unknown and adversarially selected convex costs and disturbances. A common metric for evaluating control…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-24 Vijeth Hebbar , Cédric Langbort

Policy design in non-stationary Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is inherently challenging due to the complexities introduced by time-varying system transition and reward, which make it difficult for learners to determine the optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-17 Ziyi Zhang , Yorie Nakahira , Guannan Qu

Bandit algorithms have been predominantly analyzed in the convex setting with function-value based stationary regret as the performance measure. In this paper, motivated by online reinforcement learning problems, we propose and analyze…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-09-12 Abhishek Roy , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi , Prasant Mohapatra