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This paper studies online shortest path routing over multi-hop networks. Link costs or delays are time-varying and modeled by independent and identically distributed random processes, whose parameters are initially unknown. The parameters,…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2017-01-19 M. Sadegh Talebi , Zhenhua Zou , Richard Combes , Alexandre Proutiere , Mikael Johansson

We introduce a generic template for developing regret minimization algorithms in the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) model, which achieves minimax optimal regret as long as certain properties are ensured. The key of our analysis is a new…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-11 Liyu Chen , Mehdi Jafarnia-Jahromi , Rahul Jain , Haipeng Luo

We study the sample complexity of learning an $\epsilon$-optimal policy in the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem. We first derive sample complexity bounds when the learner has access to a generative model. We show that there exists a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Jean Tarbouriech , Matteo Pirotta , Michal Valko , Alessandro Lazaric

In this paper, we study the episodic reinforcement learning (RL) problem modeled by finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with constraint on the number of batches. The multi-batch reinforcement learning framework, where the agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Zihan Zhang , Yuhang Jiang , Yuan Zhou , Xiangyang Ji

We consider the problem of online learning in Linear Quadratic Control systems whose state transition and state-action transition matrices $A$ and $B$ may be initially unknown. We devise an online learning algorithm and provide guarantees…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-30 Yassir Jedra , Alexandre Proutiere

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

We propose the k-Shortest-Path (k-SP) constraint: a novel constraint on the agent's trajectory that improves the sample efficiency in sparse-reward MDPs. We show that any optimal policy necessarily satisfies the k-SP constraint. Notably,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-15 Sungryull Sohn , Sungtae Lee , Jongwook Choi , Harm van Seijen , Mehdi Fatemi , Honglak Lee

Stochastic linear bandits are a fundamental model for sequential decision making, where an agent selects a vector-valued action and receives a noisy reward with expected value given by an unknown linear function. Although well studied in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Bruce Huang , Ruida Zhou , Lin F. Yang , Suhas Diggavi

We study episodic reinforcement learning with fixed reward and transition functions, but with episode-dependent admissible action sets that are observed at the start of each episode. Performance is measured by cumulative regret against the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-18 Zijun Chen , Zihan Zhang

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

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 2024-05-30 Danil Provodin , Maurits Kaptein , Mykola Pechenizkiy

We introduce efficient algorithms which achieve nearly optimal regrets for the problem of stochastic online shortest path routing with end-to-end feedback. The setting is a natural application of the combinatorial stochastic bandits…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-12-20 Ruihao Zhu , Eytan Modiano

We present regret minimization algorithms for stochastic contextual MDPs under minimum reachability assumption, using an access to an offline least square regression oracle. We analyze three different settings: where the dynamics is known,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-24 Orin Levy , Yishay Mansour

We consider an agent interacting with an environment in a single stream of actions, observations, and rewards, with no reset. This process is not assumed to be a Markov Decision Process (MDP). Rather, the agent has several representations…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-03-19 Odalric-Ambrym Maillard , Phuong Nguyen , Ronald Ortner , Daniil Ryabko

We consider the setting of iterative learning control, or model-based policy learning in the presence of uncertain, time-varying dynamics. In this setting, we propose a new performance metric, planning regret, which replaces the standard…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-01 Naman Agarwal , Elad Hazan , Anirudha Majumdar , Karan Singh

In this paper we propose two algorithms in the tabular setting and an algorithm for the function approximation setting for the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem. SSP problems form an important class of problems in Reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Soumyajit Guin , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We consider an online two-stage stochastic optimization with long-term constraints over a finite horizon of $T$ periods. At each period, we take the first-stage action, observe a model parameter realization and then take the second-stage…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-21 Jiashuo Jiang

A stochastic combinatorial semi-bandit is an online learning problem where at each step a learning agent chooses a subset of ground items subject to constraints, and then observes stochastic weights of these items and receives their sum as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-08 Branislav Kveton , Zheng Wen , Azin Ashkan , Csaba Szepesvari

We consider the problem of joint routing and scheduling in queueing networks, where the edge transmission costs are unknown. At each time-slot, the network controller receives noisy observations of transmission costs only for those edges it…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2025-11-05 Sathwik Chadaga , Eytan Modiano

Switching costs, which capture the costs for changing policies, are regarded as a critical metric in reinforcement learning (RL), in addition to the standard metric of losses (or rewards). However, existing studies on switching costs (with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-10 Ming Shi , Yingbin Liang , Ness Shroff