English
Related papers

Related papers: The regret lower bound for communicating Markov De…

200 papers

We present an algorithm based on the \emph{Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty} (OFU) principle which is able to learn Reinforcement Learning (RL) modeled by Markov decision process (MDP) with finite state-action space efficiently. By…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-01 Zihan Zhang , Xiangyang Ji

We study an online mixed discrete and continuous optimization problem where a decision maker interacts with an unknown environment for a number of $T$ rounds. At each round, the decision maker needs to first jointly choose a discrete and a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-27 Lintao Ye , Ming Chi , Zhi-Wei Liu , Xiaoling Wang , Vijay Gupta

This paper proposes a computationally tractable algorithm for learning infinite-horizon average-reward linear mixture Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the Bellman optimality condition. Our algorithm for linear mixture MDPs achieves a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-22 Woojin Chae , Kihyuk Hong , Yufan Zhang , Ambuj Tewari , Dabeen Lee

Reinforcement learning (RL) in large environments often suffers from severe computational bottlenecks, as conventional regret minimization algorithms require repeated, costly calls to planning and statistical estimation oracles. While…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-04 Haichen Hu , Jian Qian , David Simchi-Levi

In multi-objective decision-making with hierarchical preferences, lexicographic bandits provide a natural framework for optimizing multiple objectives in a prioritized order. In this setting, a learner repeatedly selects arms and observes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Bo Xue , Yuanyu Wan , Zhichao Lu , Qingfu Zhang

In this paper, we propose and study opportunistic reinforcement learning - a new variant of reinforcement learning problems where the regret of selecting a suboptimal action varies under an external environmental condition known as the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-26 Xiaoxiao Wang , Nader Bouacida , Xueying Guo , Xin Liu

Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Sourav Ganguly , Kishan Panaganti , Arnob Ghosh , Adam Wierman

We present the E-UC$^3$RL algorithm for regret minimization in Stochastic Contextual Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs). The algorithm operates under the minimal assumptions of realizable function class and access to \emph{offline} least…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-30 Orin Levy , Asaf Cassel , Alon Cohen , Yishay Mansour

As sequential learning algorithms are increasingly applied to real life, ensuring data privacy while maintaining their utilities emerges as a timely question. In this context, regret minimisation in stochastic bandits under…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-12 Achraf Azize , Yulian Wu , Junya Honda , Francesco Orabona , Shinji Ito , Debabrota Basu

We study regret minimization under privacy constraints in episodic inhomogeneous linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), motivated by the growing use of reinforcement learning (RL) in personalized decision-making systems that rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-29 Sharan Sahu

We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Aldo Pacchiano , Christoph Dann , Claudio Gentile , Peter Bartlett

We study the computational complexity of the infinite-horizon discounted-reward Markov Decision Problem (MDP) with a finite state space $|\mathcal{S}|$ and a finite action space $|\mathcal{A}|$. We show that any randomized algorithm needs a…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2017-05-24 Yichen Chen , Mengdi Wang

This work addresses the problem of regret minimization in non-stochastic multi-armed bandit problems, focusing on performance guarantees that hold with high probability. Such results are rather scarce in the literature since proving them…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-11-04 Gergely Neu

We consider model selection in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. Given a set of base learning algorithms, an effective model selection strategy adapts to the best learning algorithm in an online fashion. We show that by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-11 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Aldo Pacchiano , My Phan

Constrained Markov Decision Processes are a class of stochastic decision problems in which the decision maker must select a policy that satisfies auxiliary cost constraints. This paper extends upper confidence reinforcement learning for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-28 Liyuan Zheng , Lillian J. Ratliff

Deep reinforcement learning has achieved impressive successes yet often requires a very large amount of interaction data. This result is perhaps unsurprising, as using complicated function approximation often requires more data to fit, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-20 Jonathan N. Lee , Aldo Pacchiano , Vidya Muthukumar , Weihao Kong , Emma Brunskill

Online learning algorithms that minimize regret provide strong guarantees in situations that involve repeatedly making decisions in an uncertain environment, e.g. a driver deciding what route to drive to work every day. While regret…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-09-06 Jeremiah Blocki , Nicolas Christin , Anupam Datta , Arunesh Sinha

In this paper, the problem of distributed optimization is studied via a network of agents. Each agent only has access to a stochastic gradient of its own objective function in the previous time, and can communicate with its neighbors via a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-29 Yuchen Yang , Kaihong Lu , Long Wang

We consider online learning in episodic loop-free Markov decision processes (MDPs), where the loss function can change arbitrarily between episodes, and the transition function is not known to the learner. We show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-21 Aviv Rosenberg , Yishay Mansour

We show subexponential lower bounds (i.e., $2^{\Omega (n^c)}$) on the smoothed complexity of the classical Howard's Policy Iteration algorithm for Markov Decision Processes. The bounds hold for the total reward and the average reward…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2022-12-02 Miranda Christ , Mihalis Yannakakis