Related papers: SVRG for Policy Evaluation with Fewer Gradient Eva…
We consider convex-concave saddle-point problems where the objective functions may be split in many components, and extend recent stochastic variance reduction methods (such as SVRG or SAGA) to provide the first large-scale linearly…
Policy gradient methods are a vital ingredient behind the success of modern reinforcement learning. Modern policy gradient methods, although successful, introduce a residual error in gradient estimation. In this work, we argue that this…
Variational inference has experienced a recent surge in popularity owing to stochastic approaches, which have yielded practical tools for a wide range of model classes. A key benefit is that stochastic variational inference obviates the…
In decentralized learning, a network of nodes cooperate to minimize an overall objective function that is usually the finite-sum of their local objectives, and incorporates a non-smooth regularization term for the better generalization…
The Stochastic Extragradient (SEG) method is one of the most popular algorithms for solving min-max optimization and variational inequalities problems (VIP) appearing in various machine learning tasks. However, several important questions…
In order to model risk aversion in reinforcement learning, an emerging line of research adapts familiar algorithms to optimize coherent risk functionals, a class that includes conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). Because optimizing the…
In the context of finite sums minimization, variance reduction techniques are widely used to improve the performance of state-of-the-art stochastic gradient methods. Their practical impact is clear, as well as their theoretical properties.…
Stochastic gradient descent~(SGD) and its variants have become more and more popular in machine learning due to their efficiency and effectiveness. To handle large-scale problems, researchers have recently proposed several parallel SGD…
Variance-reduced gradient estimators for policy gradient methods have been one of the main focus of research in the reinforcement learning in recent years as they allow acceleration of the estimation process. We propose a variance-reduced…
Here we study non-convex composite optimization: first, a finite-sum of smooth but non-convex functions, and second, a general function that admits a simple proximal mapping. Most research on stochastic methods for composite optimization…
In this paper we combine the stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) method [17] with the primal dual fixed point method (PDFP) proposed in [7] to solve a sum of two convex functions and one of which is linearly composite. This type of…
Reinforcement learning algorithms such as the deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (DDPG) has been widely used in continuous control tasks. However, the model-free DDPG algorithm suffers from high sample complexity. In this paper we…
We develop two novel stochastic variance-reduction methods to approximate solutions of a class of nonmonotone [generalized] equations. Our algorithms leverage a new combination of ideas from the forward-reflected-backward splitting method…
Value iteration-type methods have been extensively studied for computing a nearly optimal value function in reinforcement learning (RL). Under a generative sampling model, these methods can achieve sharper sample complexity than policy…
In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) systems with general goals beyond a cumulative sum of rewards have gained traction, such as in constrained problems, exploration, and acting upon prior experiences. In this paper, we consider…
Constrained Reinforcement Learning (CRL) tackles sequential decision-making problems where agents are required to achieve goals by maximizing the expected return while meeting domain-specific constraints, which are often formulated as…
Stochastic gradient method (SGM) has been popularly applied to solve optimization problems with objective that is stochastic or an average of many functions. Most existing works on SGMs assume that the underlying problem is unconstrained or…
In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the average of a large number of nonsmooth and convex functions. Such problems often arise in typical machine learning problems as empirical risk minimization, but are computationally…
Problem decomposition plays a vital role when applying cooperative coevolution (CC) to large scale global optimization problems. However, most learning-based decomposition algorithms either only apply to additively separable problems or…
This paper studies a distributed policy gradient in collaborative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), where agents over a communication network aim to find the optimal policy to maximize the average of all agents' local returns. Due…