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We formulate a multi-armed bandit (MAB) approach to choosing expert policies online in Markov decision processes (MDPs). Given a set of expert policies trained on a state and action space, the goal is to maximize the cumulative reward of…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-07-19 Eric Mazumdar , Roy Dong , Vicenç Rúbies Royo , Claire Tomlin , S. Shankar Sastry

We consider online reinforcement learning in episodic Markov decision process (MDP) with unknown transition function and stochastic rewards drawn from some fixed but unknown distribution. The learner aims to learn the optimal policy and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-12 Vincent Leon , S. Rasoul Etesami

In this paper we consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for uncontrolled restless bandit problems. In an uncontrolled restless bandit problem, there is a finite set of arms, each of which when pulled yields a positive reward.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-01-30 Cem Tekin , Mingyan Liu

Reinforcement learning (RL) agents are commonly trained and evaluated in the same environment. In contrast, humans often train in a specialized environment before being evaluated, such as studying a book before taking an exam. The potential…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-19 Jarek Liesen , Chris Lu , Andrei Lupu , Jakob N. Foerster , Henning Sprekeler , Robert T. Lange

A crucial problem in reinforcement learning is learning the optimal policy. We study this in tabular infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes under the online setting. The existing algorithms either fail to achieve regret…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-13 Xiang Ji , Gen Li

Non-stationary environments are challenging for reinforcement learning algorithms. If the state transition and/or reward functions change based on latent factors, the agent is effectively tasked with optimizing a behavior that maximizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-21 Lucas N. Alegre , Ana L. C. Bazzan , Bruno C. da Silva

We study bandit learning in matching markets, where players and arms constitute the two market sides, and the players' utilities are linear in the arm contexts. In each round, new arms arrive with observable contexts. Then, the algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Shiyun Lin , Simon Mauras , Vianney Perchet , Nadav Merlis

We consider reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the infinite-horizon, average-reward setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, a continuous-time process moves to a state and stays there for a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-03 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou

We introduce a new framework of episodic tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs) with adversarial preferences, which we refer to as preference-based MDPs (PbMDPs). Unlike standard episodic MDPs with adversarial losses, where the numerical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-17 Taira Tsuchiya , Shinji Ito , Haipeng Luo

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

Online reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) remains less theoretically and algorithmically developed than its episodic counterpart, with many algorithms suffering from high ``burn-in'' costs and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-26 Guy Zamir , Matthew Zurek , Yudong Chen

A Tree Markov Decision Problem (T-MDP) is a finite-horizon MDP with a starting state $s_{1}$, in which every state is reachable from $s_{1}$ through exactly one state-action trajectory. T-MDPs arise naturally as abstractions of decision…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-07 Anvay Shah , Ramsundar Anandanarayanan , Sharayu Moharir , Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan

We study locally differentially private (LDP) bandits learning in this paper. First, we propose simple black-box reduction frameworks that can solve a large family of context-free bandits learning problems with LDP guarantee. Based on our…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-18 Kai Zheng , Tianle Cai , Weiran Huang , Zhenguo Li , Liwei Wang

Building on the framework introduced by Xu and Raginksy [1] for supervised learning problems, we study the best achievable performance for model-based Bayesian reinforcement learning problems. With this purpose, we define minimum Bayesian…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-19 Amaury Gouverneur , Borja Rodríguez-Gálvez , Tobias J. Oechtering , Mikael Skoglund

In the optimization of dynamical systems, the variables typically have constraints. Such problems can be modeled as a constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP). This paper considers a model-free approach to the problem, where the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-02 Qinbo Bai , Vaneet Aggarwal , Ather Gattami

We propose an epoch-based reinforcement learning algorithm for infinite-horizon average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) that leverages a partial order over a policy class. In this structure, $\pi' \leq \pi$ if data collected under…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-08-07 Zhongjun Zhang , Shipra Agrawal , Ilan Lobel , Sean R. Sinclair , Christina Lee Yu

The theory of reinforcement learning has focused on two fundamental problems: achieving low regret, and identifying $\epsilon$-optimal policies. While a simple reduction allows one to apply a low-regret algorithm to obtain an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-23 Andrew Wagenmaker , Max Simchowitz , Kevin Jamieson

While learning in an unknown Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent should trade off exploration to discover new information about the MDP, and exploitation of the current knowledge to maximize the reward. Although the agent will…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-16 Evrard Garcelon , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Alessandro Lazaric , Matteo Pirotta

We study bandit model selection in stochastic environments. Our approach relies on a meta-algorithm that selects between candidate base algorithms. We develop a meta-algorithm-base algorithm abstraction that can work with general classes of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-06 Aldo Pacchiano , My Phan , Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Anup Rao , Julian Zimmert , Tor Lattimore , Csaba Szepesvari

We study Markov Decision Processes (MDP) wherein states correspond to causal graphs that stochastically generate rewards. In this setup, the learner's goal is to identify atomic interventions that lead to high rewards by intervening on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-02 Rahul Madhavan , Aurghya Maiti , Gaurav Sinha , Siddharth Barman