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We tackle average-reward infinite-horizon POMDPs with an unknown transition model but a known observation model, a setting that has been previously addressed in two limiting ways: (i) frequentist methods relying on suboptimal stochastic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Alessio Russo , Alberto Maria Metelli , Marcello Restelli

We study the problem of PAC learning $\gamma$-margin halfspaces with Random Classification Noise. We establish an information-computation tradeoff suggesting an inherent gap between the sample complexity of the problem and the sample…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-29 Ilias Diakonikolas , Jelena Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Puqian Wang , Nikos Zarifis

We investigate the optimality for model selection of the so-called slope heuristics, $V$-fold cross-validation and $V$-fold penalization in a heteroscedastic with random design regression context. We consider a new class of linear models…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-03-08 Fabien Navarro , Adrien Saumard

We study the sample complexity of learning an $\epsilon$-optimal policy in the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem. We first derive sample complexity bounds when the learner has access to a generative model. We show that there exists a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Jean Tarbouriech , Matteo Pirotta , Michal Valko , Alessandro Lazaric

Learning to plan for long horizons is a central challenge in episodic reinforcement learning problems. A fundamental question is to understand how the difficulty of the problem scales as the horizon increases. Here the natural measure of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-10 Ruosong Wang , Simon S. Du , Lin F. Yang , Sham M. Kakade

Sample inefficiency is a long-lasting problem in reinforcement learning (RL). The state-of-the-art estimates the optimal action values while it usually involves an extensive search over the state-action space and unstable optimization.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-27 Kaixiang Lin , Jiayu Zhou

High-dimensional sparse modeling via regularization provides a powerful tool for analyzing large-scale data sets and obtaining meaningful, interpretable models. The use of nonconvex penalty functions shows advantage in selecting important…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-05-12 Zemin Zheng , Yingying Fan , Jinchi Lv

We consider high-dimensional binary classification by sparse logistic regression. We propose a model/feature selection procedure based on penalized maximum likelihood with a complexity penalty on the model size and derive the non-asymptotic…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-11-20 Felix Abramovich , Vadim Grinshtein

Offline reinforcement learning (offline RL) considers problems where learning is performed using only previously collected samples and is helpful for the settings in which collecting new data is costly or risky. In model-based offline RL,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-09 Mustafa O. Karabag , Ufuk Topcu

Sample-average approximations (SAA) are a practical means of finding approximate solutions of stochastic programming problems involving an extremely large (or infinite) number of scenarios. SAA can also be used to find estimates of a lower…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2014-05-08 Jiajie Chen , Cong Han Lim , Peter Z. G. Qian , Jeff Linderoth , Stephen J. Wright

We propose a novel algorithm for solving non-convex, nonlinear equality-constrained finite-sum optimization problems. The proposed algorithm incorporates an additional sampling strategy for sample size update into the well-known framework…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-05 Nataša Krejić , Nataša Krklec Jerinkić , Tijana Ostojić , Nemanja Vučićević

We study episodic reinforcement learning (RL) in non-stationary linear kernel Markov decision processes (MDPs). In this setting, both the reward function and the transition kernel are linear with respect to the given feature maps and are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Han Zhong , Zhongren Chen , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang , Csaba Szepesvári

This paper explores the realm of infinite horizon average reward Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs). To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to delve into the regret and constraint violation analysis of average…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-31 Qinbo Bai , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

We consider the batch (off-line) policy learning problem in the infinite horizon Markov Decision Process. Motivated by mobile health applications, we focus on learning a policy that maximizes the long-term average reward. We propose a…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-09-20 Peng Liao , Zhengling Qi , Runzhe Wan , Predrag Klasnja , Susan Murphy

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with an unknown cost function and employ stochastic convex optimization tools to address the problem of imitation learning, which consists of learning a policy from a finite set of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Angeliki Kamoutsi , Goran Banjac , John Lygeros

We consider (stochastic) softmax policy gradient (PG) methods for bandits and tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs). While the PG objective is non-concave, recent research has used the objective's smoothness and gradient domination…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-01 Michael Lu , Matin Aghaei , Anant Raj , Sharan Vaswani

The theory of reinforcement learning has focused on two fundamental problems: achieving low regret, and identifying $\epsilon$-optimal policies. While a simple reduction allows one to apply a low-regret algorithm to obtain an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-23 Andrew Wagenmaker , Max Simchowitz , Kevin Jamieson

This paper develops a viable notion of learning for sampling-based algorithms that applies in broader settings than previously considered. More specifically, we model a discounted infinite-horizon MDPs with Borel state and action spaces,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-09 Daniel Adelman , Cagla Keceli , Alba V. Olivares-Nadal

Standard bandit algorithms that assume continual reallocation of measurement effort are challenging to implement due to delayed feedback and infrastructural/organizational difficulties. Motivated by practical instances involving a handful…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Ethan Che , Hongseok Namkoong

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