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In this paper, we consider a class of finite-sum convex optimization problems whose objective function is given by the summation of $m$ ($\ge 1$) smooth components together with some other relatively simple terms. We first introduce a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-10-27 Guanghui Lan , Yi Zhou

We develop a framework for convexifying a fairly general class of optimization problems. Under additional assumptions, we analyze the suboptimality of the solution to the convexified problem relative to the original nonconvex problem and…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2014-06-04 Krishnamurthy Dvijotham , Maryam Fazel , Emanuel Todorov

Preference-conditioned multi-objective reinforcement learning aims to learn a single policy that captures trade-offs across preferences, but under nonlinear scalarization the uniqueness and continuity of the preference-to-solution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Akihiro Kubo , Kosuke Nakanishi , Shin Ishii

In this paper, we study the learning of safe policies in the setting of reinforcement learning problems. This is, we aim to control a Markov Decision Process (MDP) of which we do not know the transition probabilities, but we have access to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-01-14 Santiago Paternain , Miguel Calvo-Fullana , Luiz F. O. Chamon , Alejandro Ribeiro

In this paper, we focus on the problem of robustifying reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms with respect to model uncertainties. Indeed, in the framework of model-based RL, we propose to merge the theory of constrained Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-13 Reazul Hasan Russel , Mouhacine Benosman , Jeroen Van Baar

While standard reinforcement learning optimizes a single reward signal, many applications require optimizing a nonlinear utility $f(J_1^\pi,\dots,J_M^\pi)$ over multiple objectives, where each $J_m^\pi$ denotes the expected discounted…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Swetha Ganesh , Vaneet Aggarwal

We study discrete-time discounted constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) on Borel spaces with unbounded reward functions. In our approach the transition probability functions are weakly or set-wise continuous. The reward functions…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-03-29 Eugene A. Feinberg , Anna Jaśkiewicz , Andrzej S. Nowak

Policy gradient (PG) methods are popular and efficient for large-scale reinforcement learning due to their relative stability and incremental nature. In recent years, the empirical success of PG methods has led to the development of a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-24 Yuhao Ding , Junzi Zhang , Javad Lavaei

In this paper we propose a randomized primal-dual proximal block coordinate updating framework for a general multi-block convex optimization model with coupled objective function and linear constraints. Assuming mere convexity, we establish…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-01-25 Xiang Gao , Yangyang Xu , Shuzhong Zhang

We consider the problem of finding the best memoryless stochastic policy for an infinite-horizon partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) with finite state and action spaces with respect to either the discounted or mean reward…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-02 Johannes Müller , Guido Montúfar

Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) is a general family of algorithms that covers a wide range of novel and fundamental methods in reinforcement learning. Motivated by the instability of policy iteration (PI) with inexact policy evaluation, PMD…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-23 Emmeran Johnson , Ciara Pike-Burke , Patrick Rebeschini

Policy evaluation is a crucial step in many reinforcement-learning procedures, which estimates a value function that predicts states' long-term value under a given policy. In this paper, we focus on policy evaluation with linear function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-12 Simon S. Du , Jianshu Chen , Lihong Li , Lin Xiao , Dengyong Zhou

In the paper, we design a novel Bregman gradient policy optimization framework for reinforcement learning based on Bregman divergences and momentum techniques. Specifically, we propose a Bregman gradient policy optimization (BGPO) algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-17 Feihu Huang , Shangqian Gao , Heng Huang

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

The robust constrained Markov decision process (RCMDP) is a recent task-modelling framework for reinforcement learning that incorporates behavioural constraints and that provides robustness to errors in the transition dynamics model through…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-16 David M. Bossens

Opacity, or non-interference, is a property ensuring that an external observer cannot infer confidential information (the "secret") from system observations. We introduce an information-theoretic measure of opacity, which quantifies…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-05 Chongyang Shi , Sumukha Udupa , Michael R. Dorothy , Shuo Han , Jie Fu

Value-at-risk (VaR), also known as quantile, is a crucial risk measure in finance and other fields. However, optimizing VaR metrics in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is challenging because VaR is non-additive and the traditional dynamic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-31 Li Xia , Jinyan Pan

Motivated by many application problems, we consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a general loss function and unknown parameters. To mitigate the epistemic uncertainty associated with unknown parameters, we take a Bayesian approach…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-02 Xiaoshuang Wang , Yifan Lin , Enlu Zhou

A large class of decision making under uncertainty problems can be described via Markov decision processes (MDPs) or partially observable MDPs (POMDPs), with application to artificial intelligence and operations research, among others.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-09-10 Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Ugo Rosolia , Michel D. Ingham , Richard M. Murray , Aaron D. Ames

While the techniques in optimal control theory are often model-based, the policy optimization (PO) approach directly optimizes the performance metric of interest. Even though it has been an essential approach for reinforcement learning…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-11-23 Feiran Zhao , Keyou You , Tamer Başar