Related papers: A (Slightly) Improved Deterministic Approximation …
We study entropy-regularized constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the soft-max parameterization, in which an agent aims to maximize the entropy-regularized value function while satisfying constraints on the expected total…
This paper studies a classic maximum entropy sampling problem (MESP), which aims to select the most informative principal submatrix of a prespecified size from a covariance matrix. MESP has been widely applied to many areas, including…
We study the problem of synthesizing a controller that maximizes the entropy of a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) subject to a constraint on the expected total reward. Such a controller minimizes the predictability of a…
In this paper, we introduce a method for approximating the solution to inference and optimization tasks in uncertain and deterministic reasoning. Such tasks are in general intractable for exact algorithms because of the large number of…
We compute the integral of a function or the expectation of a random variable with minimal cost and use, for our new algorithm and for upper bounds of the complexity, i.i.d. samples. Under certain assumptions it is possible to select a…
Partially-observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with discounted-sum payoff are a standard framework to model a wide range of problems related to decision making under uncertainty. Traditionally, the goal has been to obtain policies…
We study the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function subject to a matroid constraint and present a deterministic algorithm that achieves (1/2 + {\epsilon})-approximation for the problem. This algorithm is the first…
We present an iterative inverse reinforcement learning algorithm to infer optimal cost functions in continuous spaces. Based on a popular maximum entropy criteria, our approach iteratively finds a weight improvement step and proposes a…
Maximum consensus estimation plays a critically important role in robust fitting problems in computer vision. Currently, the most prevalent algorithms for consensus maximization draw from the class of randomized hypothesize-and-verify…
We describe a method to computationally estimate the probability density function of a univariate random variable by applying the maximum entropy principle with some local conditions given by Gaussian functions. The estimation errors and…
We design new algorithms for approximating 2CSPs on graphs with bounded threshold rank, that is, whose normalized adjacency matrix has few eigenvalues larger than $\varepsilon$, smaller than $-\varepsilon$, or both. Unlike on worst-case…
We propose an algorithm for generating explicit solutions of multiparametric mixed-integer convex programs to within a given suboptimality tolerance. The algorithm is applicable to a very general class of optimization problems, but is most…
We study the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem for autonomous systems with mixed max-sum cost aggregations under Linear Temporal Logic constraints. Classical SSP formulations rely on sum-aggregated costs, which are suitable for…
Maximum entropy estimation is of broad interest for inferring properties of systems across many different disciplines. In this work, we significantly extend a technique we previously introduced for estimating the maximum entropy of a set of…
In the maximum asymmetric traveling salesman problem (Max ATSP) we are given a complete directed graph with nonnegative weights on the edges and we wish to compute a traveling salesman tour of maximum weight. In this paper we give a fast…
In this paper, we study the problem of estimating latent variable models with arbitrarily corrupted samples in high dimensional space ({\em i.e.,} $d\gg n$) where the underlying parameter is assumed to be sparse. Specifically, we propose a…
Let A be a matrix, c be any linear objective function and x be a fractional vector, say an LP solution to some discrete optimization problem. Then a recurring task in theoretical computer science (and in approximation algorithms in…
Efficient approximation lies at the heart of large-scale machine learning problems. In this paper, we propose a novel, robust maximum entropy algorithm, which is capable of dealing with hundreds of moments and allows for computationally…
Optimisation problems in science and engineering typically involve finding the ground state (i.e. the minimum energy configuration) of a cost function with respect to many variables. If the variables are corrupted by noise then this…
We improve the approximation ratio for the Asymmetric TSP to less than 15. We also obtain improved ratios for the special case of unweighted digraphs and the generalization where we ask for a minimum-cost tour with given (distinct)…