Related papers: Policy-based Primal-Dual Methods for Concave CMDP …
We consider infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes and study the convergence rates of the natural policy gradient (NPG) and the Q-NPG methods with the log-linear policy class. Using the compatible function approximation…
Multi-model Markov decision process (MMDP) is a promising framework for computing policies that are robust to parameter uncertainty in MDPs. MMDPs aim to find a policy that maximizes the expected return over a distribution of MDP models.…
Reactive (memoryless) policies are sufficient in completely observable Markov decision processes (MDPs), but some kind of memory is usually necessary for optimal control of a partially observable MDP. Policies with finite memory can be…
We present a parallelized primal-dual algorithm for solving constrained convex optimization problems. The algorithm is "block-based," in that vectors of primal and dual variables are partitioned into blocks, each of which is updated only by…
We propose a scalable, policy-centric framework for continuous-time multi-asset portfolio-consumption optimization under inequality constraints. Our method integrates neural policies with Pontryagin's Maximum Principle (PMP) and enforces…
Dynamic Programming (DP) provides standard algorithms to solve Markov Decision Processes. However, these algorithms generally do not optimize a scalar objective function. In this paper, we draw connections between DP and (constrained)…
In the optimization of dynamic systems, the variables typically have constraints. Such problems can be modeled as a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP). This paper considers the peak Constrained Markov Decision Process (PCMDP), where…
Many sequential decision problems involve optimizing one objective function while imposing constraints on other objectives. Constrained Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (C-POMDP) model this case with transition uncertainty and…
Doubly robust methods hold considerable promise for off-policy evaluation in Markov decision processes (MDPs) under sequential ignorability: They have been shown to converge as $1/\sqrt{T}$ with the horizon $T$, to be statistically…
Primal-dual algorithm (PDA) is a classic and popular scheme for convex-concave saddle point problems. It is universally acknowledged that the proximal terms in the subproblems about the primal and dual variables are crucial to the…
Solving partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is highly intractable in general, at least in part because the optimal policy may be infinitely large. In this paper, we explore the problem of finding the optimal policy from…
We propose a gradient-based method for quadratic programming problems with a single linear constraint and bounds on the variables. Inspired by the GPCG algorithm for bound-constrained convex quadratic programming [J.J. Mor\'e and G.…
Calculating optimal policies is known to be computationally difficult for Markov decision processes (MDPs) with Borel state and action spaces. This paper studies finite-state approximations of discrete time Markov decision processes with…
Averaging scheme has attracted extensive attention in deep learning as well as traditional machine learning. It achieves theoretically optimal convergence and also improves the empirical model performance. However, there is still a lack of…
This paper considers stochastic optimization problems for a large class of objective functions, including convex and continuous submodular. Stochastic proximal gradient methods have been widely used to solve such problems; however, their…
Primal-dual algorithms for the resolution of convex-concave saddle point problems usually come with one or several step size parameters. Within the range where convergence is guaranteed, choosing well the step size can make the difference…
We study a reinforcement learning setting, where the state transition function is a convex combination of a stochastic continuous function and a deterministic function. Such a setting generalizes the widely-studied stochastic state…
Recent advances in Rate-Distortion-Perception (RDP) theory highlight the importance of balancing compression level, reconstruction quality, and perceptual fidelity. While previous work has explored numerical approaches to approximate the…
While the optimization landscape of policy gradient methods has been recently investigated for partially observed linear systems in terms of both static output feedback and dynamical controllers, they only provide convergence guarantees to…
Consensus optimization enables autonomous agents to solve joint tasks through peer-to-peer exchanges alone. Classical decentralized gradient descent is appealing for its minimal state but fails to achieve exact consensus with fixed…