Related papers: A Max-Min-Max Algorithm for Large-Scale Robust Opt…
Many advances that have improved the robustness and efficiency of deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms can, in one way or another, be understood as introducing additional objectives or constraints in the policy optimization step.…
In data-driven optimization, solution feasibility is often ensured through a "safe" reformulation of the uncertain constraints, such that an obtained data-driven solution is guaranteed to be feasible for the oracle formulation with high…
Zeroth-order optimization (ZO) has been a powerful framework for solving black-box problems, which estimates gradients using zeroth-order data to update variables iteratively. The practical applicability of ZO critically depends on the…
We study distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems where the ambiguity set is defined using the Wasserstein metric. We show that this class of DRO problems can be reformulated as semi-infinite programs. We give an exchange method…
Real-life parallel machine scheduling problems can be characterized by: (i) limited information about the exact task duration at scheduling time, and (ii) an opportunity to reschedule the remaining tasks each time a task processing is…
The problem of non-monotone $k$-submodular maximization under a knapsack constraint ($\kSMK$) over the ground set size $n$ has been raised in many applications in machine learning, such as data summarization, information propagation, etc.…
Our goal is to compute a policy that guarantees improved return over a baseline policy even when the available MDP model is inaccurate. The inaccurate model may be constructed, for example, by system identification techniques when the true…
This paper considers robust solutions to a class of nonlinear least squares problems using min-max optimization approach. We give an explicit formula for the value function of the inner maximization problem and show the existence of global…
This study investigates a robust screening problem under distributional ambiguity, where a seller is uncertain about a buyer's true valuation distribution, knowing only that it lies near a reference distribution measured by the Wasserstein…
Reinforcement learning algorithms, though successful, tend to over-fit to training environments hampering their application to the real-world. This paper proposes $\text{W}\text{R}^{2}\text{L}$ -- a robust reinforcement learning algorithm…
Online bilevel optimization (OBO) is a powerful framework for machine learning problems where both outer and inner objectives evolve over time, requiring dynamic updates. Current OBO approaches rely on deterministic \textit{window-smoothed}…
Designing high-performance electric machines that maintain their efficiency and reliability under uncertain material and operating conditions is crucial for industrial applications. In this paper, we present a novel framework for robust…
We consider the speed planning problem for a robotic manipulator. In particular, we present an algorithm for finding the time-optimal speed law along an assigned path that satisfies velocity and acceleration constraints and respects the…
In this paper, we revisit the smooth and strongly-convex-strongly-concave minimax optimization problem. Zhang et al. (2021) and Ibrahim et al. (2020) established the lower bound $\Omega\left(\sqrt{\kappa_x\kappa_y} \log…
Gradient-based minimax optimal algorithms have greatly promoted the development of continuous optimization and machine learning. One seminal work due to Yurii Nesterov [Nes83a] established $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{L/\mu})$ gradient…
Lower-bound analyses for nonconvex strongly-concave minimax optimization problems have shown that stochastic first-order algorithms require at least $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-4})$ oracle complexity to find an $\varepsilon$-stationary…
Optimising queries in real-world situations under imperfect conditions is still a problem that has not been fully solved. We consider finding the optimal order in which to execute a given set of selection operators under partial ignorance…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been able to solve hard problems such as playing Atari games or solving the game of Go, with a unified approach. Yet modern deep RL approaches are still not widely used in real-world applications. One reason…
We present two first-order, sequential optimization algorithms to solve constrained optimization problems. We consider a black-box setting with a priori unknown, non-convex objective and constraint functions that have Lipschitz continuous…
Operator splitting methods solve composite optimization problems by breaking them into smaller sub-problems that can be solved sequentially or in parallel. In this paper, we propose a unified framework for certifying both linear and…