Related papers: SVRG for Policy Evaluation with Fewer Gradient Eva…

Policy gradient methods are among the most effective methods for large-scale reinforcement learning, and their empirical success has prompted several works that develop the foundation of their global convergence theory. However, prior works…

We study semi-supervised stochastic optimization when labeled data is scarce but predictions from pre-trained models are available. PPI and SVRG both reduce variance through control variates -- PPI uses predictions, SVRG uses reference…

Although well-established in general reinforcement learning (RL), value-based methods are rarely explored in constrained RL (CRL) for their incapability of finding policies that can randomize among multiple actions. To apply value-based…

The communication overhead has become a significant bottleneck in data-parallel network with the increasing of model size and data samples. In this work, we propose a new algorithm LPC-SVRG with quantized gradients and its acceleration…

We provide performance guarantees for a variant of simulation-based policy iteration for controlling Markov decision processes that involves the use of stochastic approximation algorithms along with state-of-the-art techniques that are…

Several authors have recently developed risk-sensitive policy gradient methods that augment the standard expected cost minimization problem with a measure of variability in cost. These studies have focused on specific risk-measures, such as…

In this paper, we address \ac{SGNEP} seeking with risk-neutral agents. Our main contribution lies the development of a stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) technique, modified to contend with general sample spaces, within a…

We study distributed optimization algorithms for minimizing the average of \emph{heterogeneous} functions distributed across several machines with a focus on communication efficiency. In such settings, naively using the classical stochastic…

We present a uniform analysis of biased stochastic gradient methods for minimizing convex, strongly convex, and non-convex composite objectives, and identify settings where bias is useful in stochastic gradient estimation. The framework we…

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD), which dates back to the 1950s, is one of the most popular and effective approaches for performing stochastic optimization. Research on SGD resurged recently in machine learning for optimizing convex loss…

Variable selection and dimension reduction are two commonly adopted approaches for high-dimensional data analysis, but have traditionally been treated separately. Here we propose an integrated approach, called sparse gradient learning…

The goal of policy gradient approaches is to find a policy in a given class of policies which maximizes the expected return. Given a differentiable model of the policy, we want to apply a gradient-ascent technique to reach a local optimum.…

Two-level stochastic optimization formulations have become instrumental in a number of machine learning contexts such as continual learning, neural architecture search, adversarial learning, and hyperparameter tuning. Practical stochastic…

Despite extreme sample inefficiency, on-policy reinforcement learning, aka policy gradients, has become a fundamental tool in decision-making problems. With the recent advances in GPU-driven simulation, the ability to collect large amounts…

This paper presents a novel stochastic gradient descent algorithm for constrained optimization. The proposed algorithm randomly samples constraints and components of the finite sum objective function and relies on a relaxed logarithmic…

Atomic-scale materials synthesis via layer deposition techniques present a unique opportunity to control material structures and yield systems that display unique functional properties that cannot be stabilized using traditional bulk…

This paper considers policy search in continuous state-action reinforcement learning problems. Typically, one computes search directions using a classic expression for the policy gradient called the Policy Gradient Theorem, which decomposes…

Over the past ten years, driven by large scale optimisation problems arising from machine learning, the development of stochastic optimisation methods have witnessed a tremendous growth. However, despite their popularity, the theoretical…

Sparse ridge regression is widely utilized in modern data analysis and machine learning. However, computing globally optimal solutions for sparse ridge regression is challenging, particularly when samples are arbitrarily given or generated…

A stochastic gradient method for finite-sum minimization subject to deterministic linear constraints is proposed and analyzed. The procedure presented adapts the projected gradient method on convex set to the use of both a stochastic…