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We consider the problem of fitting variational posterior approximations using stochastic optimization methods. The performance of these approximations depends on (1) how well the variational family matches the true posterior…

We derive uniform all-time concentration bound of the type 'for all $n \geq n_0$ for some $n_0$' for TD(0) with linear function approximation. We work with online TD learning with samples from a single sample path of the underlying Markov…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Siddharth Chandak , Vivek S. Borkar

This paper proposes an identification algorithm for Single Input Single Output (SISO) Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) systems. In the noise-free setting, where the first $T$ Markov parameters can be precisely estimated, all Markov parameters…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-12 Jiayun Li , Yilin Mo

We establish maximal concentration bounds for the iterates generated by stochastic approximation algorithms with general step sizes, where the noise has a finite-state Markovian component plus a Martingale-difference component. When the…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-05-21 Shubhada Agrawal , Siva Theja Maguluri , Martin Zubeldia

We observe n possibly dependent random variables, the distribution of which is presumed to be stationary even though this might not be true, and we aim at estimating the stationary distribution. We establish a non-asymptotic deviation bound…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-07-10 Alexandre Lecestre

This paper establishes the first almost sure convergence rate and the first maximal concentration bound with exponential tails for general contractive stochastic approximation algorithms with Markovian noise. As a corollary, we also obtain…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-22 Xiaochi Qian , Zixuan Xie , Xinyu Liu , Shangtong Zhang

Mostof the existing literature on supervised machine learning problems focuses on the case when the training data set is drawn from an i.i.d. sample. However, many practical problems are characterized by temporal dependence and strong…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-01-23 Nikola Sandrić , Stjepan Šebek

Motivated by the study of $Q$-learning algorithms in reinforcement learning, we study a class of stochastic approximation procedures based on operators that satisfy monotonicity and quasi-contractivity conditions with respect to an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-25 Martin J. Wainwright

This paper considers stochastic-constrained stochastic optimization where the stochastic constraint is to satisfy that the expectation of a random function is below a certain threshold. In particular, we study the setting where data samples…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-27 Yeongjong Kim , Dabeen Lee

Stochastic approximation (SA) is a fundamental iterative framework with broad applications in reinforcement learning and optimization. Classical analyses typically rely on martingale difference or Markov noise with bounded second moments,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-23 Siddharth Chandak , Anuj Yadav , Ayfer Ozgur , Nicholas Bambos

In this note we consider the finite-dimensional parameter estimation problem associated to inverse problems. In such scenarios, one seeks to maximize the marginal likelihood associated to a Bayesian model. This latter model is connected to…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-04-10 Ajay Jasra , Abylay Zhumekenov

We study the linear stochastic bandit problem, relaxing the standard i.i.d. assumption on the observation noise. As an alternative to this restrictive assumption, we allow the noise terms across rounds to be sub-Gaussian but interdependent,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-28 Baptiste Abélès , Eugenio Clerico , Hamish Flynn , Gergely Neu

The spectral gap $\gamma$ of a finite, ergodic, and reversible Markov chain is an important parameter measuring the asymptotic rate of convergence. In applications, the transition matrix $P$ may be unknown, yet one sample of the chain up to…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2017-08-25 Daniel Hsu , Aryeh Kontorovich , David A. Levin , Yuval Peres , Csaba Szepesvári

As saturated output observations are ubiquitous in practice, identifying stochastic systems with such nonlinear observations is a fundamental problem across various fields. This paper investigates the asymptotically efficient identification…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-07 Lantian Zhang , Lei Guo

The paper considers the problem of distributed adaptive linear parameter estimation in multi-agent inference networks. Local sensing model information is only partially available at the agents and inter-agent communication is assumed to be…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-08-07 Soummya Kar , Jose' M. F. Moura , H. Vincent Poor

For a discrete time Markov chain and in line with Strotz' consistent planning we develop a framework for problems of optimal stopping that are time-inconsistent due to the consideration of a non-linear function of an expected reward. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-01-23 Sören Christensen , Kristoffer Lindensjö

We study the problem of estimating the fixed point of a contractive operator defined on a separable Banach space. Focusing on a stochastic query model that provides noisy evaluations of the operator, we analyze a variance-reduced stochastic…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-11-30 Wenlong Mou , Koulik Khamaru , Martin J. Wainwright , Peter L. Bartlett , Michael I. Jordan

We present a probabilistic model for stochastic iterative algorithms with the use case of optimization algorithms in mind. Based on this model, we present PAC-Bayesian generalization bounds for functions that are defined on the trajectory…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-22 Michael Sucker , Peter Ochs

This paper presents the first sufficient conditions that guarantee the stability and almost sure convergence of multi-timescale stochastic approximation (SA) iterates. It extends the existing results on one-timescale and two-timescale SA…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-16 Rohan Deb , Swetha Ganesh , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We consider stochastic approximation for the least squares regression problem in the non-strongly convex setting. We present the first practical algorithm that achieves the optimal prediction error rates in terms of dependence on the noise…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-04 Aditya Varre , Nicolas Flammarion