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Any reinforcement learning algorithm that applies to all Markov decision processes (MDPs) will suffer $\Omega(\sqrt{SAT})$ regret on some MDP, where $T$ is the elapsed time and $S$ and $A$ are the cardinalities of the state and action…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-11-04 Ian Osband , Benjamin Van Roy

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

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

In recent years, significant attention has been directed towards learning average-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). However, existing algorithms either suffer from sub-optimal regret guarantees or computational inefficiencies. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Victor Boone , Zihan Zhang

We study reinforcement learning in non-episodic factored Markov decision processes (FMDPs). We propose two near-optimal and oracle-efficient algorithms for FMDPs. Assuming oracle access to an FMDP planner, they enjoy a Bayesian and a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-06-09 Ziping Xu , Ambuj Tewari

In mixed-autonomy traffic networks, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are required to make sequential routing decisions under uncertainty caused by dynamic and heterogeneous interactions with human-driven vehicles (HDVs). Early-stage greedy…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-12 Yu Bai , Yiming Li , Xi Xiong

We improve the efficiency of algorithms for stochastic \emph{combinatorial semi-bandits}. In most interesting problems, state-of-the-art algorithms take advantage of structural properties of rewards, such as \emph{independence}. However,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-24 Pierre Perrault , Vianney Perchet , Michal Valko

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) is a class of online learning problems where a learning agent aims to maximize its expected cumulative reward while repeatedly selecting to pull arms with unknown reward distributions. We consider a scenario where…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-01-25 Yang Cao , Zheng Wen , Branislav Kveton , Yao Xie

We study the constant regret guarantees in reinforcement learning (RL). Our objective is to design an algorithm that incurs only finite regret over infinite episodes with high probability. We introduce an algorithm, Cert-LSVI-UCB, for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-13 Weitong Zhang , Zhiyuan Fan , Jiafan He , Quanquan Gu

We propose a novel variant of the UCB algorithm (referred to as Efficient-UCB-Variance (EUCBV)) for minimizing cumulative regret in the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) setting. EUCBV incorporates the arm elimination strategy proposed in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-07-12 Subhojyoti Mukherjee , K. P. Naveen , Nandan Sudarsanam , Balaraman Ravindran

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

We consider the reinforcement learning problem for the constrained Markov decision process (CMDP), which plays a central role in satisfying safety or resource constraints in sequential learning and decision-making. In this problem, we are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-19 Jiashuo Jiang , Yinyu Ye

We study regret minimization under privacy constraints in episodic inhomogeneous linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), motivated by the growing use of reinforcement learning (RL) in personalized decision-making systems that rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-29 Sharan Sahu

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

In this paper, we consider stochastic multi-armed bandits (MABs) with heavy-tailed rewards, whose $p$-th moment is bounded by a constant $\nu_{p}$ for $1<p\leq2$. First, we propose a novel robust estimator which does not require $\nu_{p}$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-28 Kyungjae Lee , Hongjun Yang , Sungbin Lim , Songhwai Oh

We study infinite-horizon average-reward constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the unichain assumption and general policy parameterizations. Existing regret analyses for constrained reinforcement learning largely rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Anirudh Satheesh , Vaneet Aggarwal

We study safe reinforcement learning in finite-horizon linear mixture constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with adversarial rewards under full-information feedback and an unknown transition kernel. We propose a primal-dual policy…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-31 Kihyun Yu , Seoungbin Bae , Dabeen Lee

We introduce \texttt{OPO-CMDP}, the first policy optimization algorithm for stochastic Contextual Markov Decision Process (CMDPs) under general offline function approximation. Our approach achieves a high probability regret bound of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Orin Levy , Aviv Rosenberg , Alon Cohen , Yishay Mansour

Learning Markov decision processes (MDP) in an adversarial environment has been a challenging problem. The problem becomes even more challenging with function approximation, since the underlying structure of the loss function and transition…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-15 Fang Kong , Xiangcheng Zhang , Baoxiang Wang , Shuai Li

We study infinite-horizon average-reward Markov decision processes (AMDPs) in the context of general function approximation. Specifically, we propose a novel algorithmic framework named Local-fitted Optimization with OPtimism (LOOP), which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-22 Jianliang He , Han Zhong , Zhuoran Yang