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This paper is in the field of stochastic Multi-Armed Bandits (MABs), i.e. those sequential selection techniques able to learn online using only the feedback given by the chosen option (a.k.a. $arm$). We study a particular case of the rested…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-11-28 Marco Fiandri , Alberto Maria Metelli , Francesco Trov`o

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) replaces hard-to-specify rewards with pairwise trajectory preferences, yet regret-oriented theory often assumes that preference labels are generated consistently from a single ground-truth…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-03 Ming Shi , Yingbin Liang , Ness B. Shroff , Ananthram Swami

We consider the problem where $M$ agents interact with $M$ identical and independent environments with $S$ states and $A$ actions using reinforcement learning for $T$ rounds. The agents share their data with a central server to minimize…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-23 Mridul Agarwal , Bhargav Ganguly , Vaneet Aggarwal

We study the distribution of regret in stochastic multi-armed bandits and episodic reinforcement learning through a unified framework. We formalize a distributional regret bound as a probabilistic guarantee that holds uniformly over all…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Harin Lee , Min-hwan Oh

Information-directed sampling (IDS) has revealed its potential as a data-efficient algorithm for reinforcement learning (RL). However, theoretical understanding of IDS for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is still limited. We develop novel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-28 Botao Hao , Tor Lattimore

We study the constrained reinforcement learning problem, in which an agent aims to maximize the expected cumulative reward subject to a constraint on the expected total value of a utility function. In contrast to existing model-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-10 Arnob Ghosh , Xingyu Zhou , Ness Shroff

Exploration in reinforcement learning (RL) suffers from the curse of dimensionality when the state-action space is large. A common practice is to parameterize the high-dimensional value and policy functions using given features. However…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-14 Lin F. Yang , Mengdi Wang

We study the adaptive control of an unknown linear system with a quadratic cost function subject to safety constraints on both the states and actions. The challenges of this problem arise from the tension among safety, exploration,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-11-02 Yingying Li , Subhro Das , Jeff Shamma , Na Li

In this paper, we study the episodic reinforcement learning (RL) problem modeled by finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with constraint on the number of batches. The multi-batch reinforcement learning framework, where the agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Zihan Zhang , Yuhang Jiang , Yuan Zhou , Xiangyang Ji

We consider a stochastic inventory control problem under censored demands, lost sales, and positive lead times. This is a fundamental problem in inventory management, with significant literature establishing near-optimality of a simple…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-14 Shipra Agrawal , Randy Jia

Multi-armed Bandit motivates methods with provable upper bounds on regret and also the counterpart lower bounds have been extensively studied in this context. Recently, Multi-agent Multi-armed Bandit has gained significant traction in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-17 Mengfan Xu , Diego Klabjan

We study online inverse linear optimization, also known as contextual recommendation, where a learner sequentially infers an agent's hidden objective vector from observed optimal actions over feasible sets that change over time. The learner…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Taihei Oki , Shinsaku Sakaue

We address the issue of safety in reinforcement learning. We pose the problem in an episodic framework of a constrained Markov decision process. Existing results have shown that it is possible to achieve a reward regret of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-26 Tao Liu , Ruida Zhou , Dileep Kalathil , P. R. Kumar , Chao Tian

We propose a framework which generalizes "decision making with structured observations" by allowing robust (i.e. multivalued) models. In this framework, each model associates each decision with a convex set of probability distributions over…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-27 Alexander Appel , Vanessa Kosoy

We consider adaptive control of the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), where an unknown linear system is controlled subject to quadratic costs. Leveraging recent developments in the estimation of linear systems and in robust controller…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-25 Sarah Dean , Horia Mania , Nikolai Matni , Benjamin Recht , Stephen Tu

This paper presents the first non-asymptotic result showing that a model-free algorithm can achieve a logarithmic cumulative regret for episodic tabular reinforcement learning if there exists a strictly positive sub-optimality gap in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-24 Kunhe Yang , Lin F. Yang , Simon S. Du

A crucial problem in reinforcement learning is learning the optimal policy. We study this in tabular infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes under the online setting. The existing algorithms either fail to achieve regret…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-13 Xiang Ji , Gen Li

Achieving sample efficiency in online episodic reinforcement learning (RL) requires optimally balancing exploration and exploitation. When it comes to a finite-horizon episodic Markov decision process with $S$ states, $A$ actions and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Gen Li , Laixi Shi , Yuxin Chen , Yuejie Chi

We propose an epoch-based reinforcement learning algorithm for infinite-horizon average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) that leverages a partial order over a policy class. In this structure, $\pi' \leq \pi$ if data collected under…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-08-07 Zhongjun Zhang , Shipra Agrawal , Ilan Lobel , Sean R. Sinclair , Christina Lee Yu

Online reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) remains less theoretically and algorithmically developed than its episodic counterpart, with many algorithms suffering from high ``burn-in'' costs and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-26 Guy Zamir , Matthew Zurek , Yudong Chen