Related papers: Efficient Global Planning in Large MDPs via Stocha…
In this paper we introduce a class of novel distributed algorithms for solving stochastic big-data convex optimization problems over directed graphs. In the addressed set-up, the dimension of the decision variable can be extremely high and…
In this paper, we propose the primal-dual method of multipliers (PDMM) for distributed optimization over a graph. In particular, we optimize a sum of convex functions defined over a graph, where every edge in the graph carries a linear…
We present a primal-dual majorization-minimization method for solving large-scale linear programs. A smooth barrier augmented Lagrangian (SBAL) function with strict convexity for the dual linear program is derived. The…
In this paper, we consider planning in stochastic shortest path (SSP) problems, a subclass of Markov Decision Problems (MDP). We focus on medium-size problems whose state space can be fully enumerated. This problem has numerous important…
This paper investigates a class of optimal control problems associated with Markov processes with local state information. The decision-maker has only local access to a subset of a state vector information as often encountered in…
We study query and computationally efficient planning algorithms with linear function approximation and a simulator. We assume that the agent only has local access to the simulator, meaning that the agent can only query the simulator at…
Markov Decision Problems (MDPs) provide a foundational framework for modelling sequential decision-making across diverse domains, guided by optimality criteria such as discounted and average rewards. However, these criteria have inherent…
We study the problem of policy optimization for infinite-horizon discounted Markov Decision Processes with softmax policy and nonlinear function approximation trained with policy gradient algorithms. We concentrate on the training dynamics…
This paper is devoted to the design of efficient primal-dual algorithm (PDA) for solving convex optimization problems with known saddle-point structure. We present a new PDA with larger acceptable range of parameters and correction, which…
In this paper, we develop a Topological Approximate Dynamic Programming (TADP) method for planningin stochastic systems modeled as Markov Decision Processesto maximize the probability of satisfying high-level systemspecifications expressed…
This paper proposes TriPD, a new primal-dual algorithm for minimizing the sum of a Lipschitz-differentiable convex function and two possibly nonsmooth convex functions, one of which is composed with a linear mapping. We devise a randomized…
Several attempts to dampen the curse of dimensionnality problem of the Dynamic Programming approach for solving multistage optimization problems have been investigated. One popular way to address this issue is the Stochastic Dual Dynamic…
Human preferences are not always represented via complete linear orders: It is natural to employ partially-ordered preferences for expressing incomparable outcomes. In this work, we consider decision-making and probabilistic planning in…
The key assumption underlying linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is that the learner has access to a known feature map $\phi(x, a)$ that maps state-action pairs to $d$-dimensional vectors, and that the rewards and transitions are…
This paper discusses algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) that have monotone optimal policies. We propose a two-stage alternating convex optimization scheme that can accelerate the search for an optimal policy by…
Regularized empirical risk minimization problem with linear predictor appears frequently in machine learning. In this paper, we propose a new stochastic primal-dual method to solve this class of problems. Different from existing methods,…
Based on a preconditioned version of the randomized block-coordinate forward-backward algorithm recently proposed in [Combettes,Pesquet,2014], several variants of block-coordinate primal-dual algorithms are designed in order to solve a wide…
In this paper we consider the problem of computing an $\epsilon$-optimal policy of a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) provided we can only access its transition function through a generative sampling model that given any…
In this paper, two distributed multi-proximal primal-dual algorithms are proposed to deal with a class of distributed nonsmooth resource allocation problems. In these problems, the global cost function is the summation of local convex and…
In this paper, we consider a class of continuous-time, continuous-space stochastic optimal control problems. Building upon recent advances in Markov chain approximation methods and sampling-based algorithms for deterministic path planning,…