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Microgrid operation is highly vulnerable to short-term load uncertainty, while conventional predict-then-optimize pipelines cannot fully align probabilistic forecasting quality with downstream robust scheduling performance. This paper…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-21 Tingwei Cao , Yan Xu

We consider an online stochastic game with risk-averse agents whose goal is to learn optimal decisions that minimize the risk of incurring significantly high costs. Specifically, we use the Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) as a risk measure…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-17 Zifan Wang , Yi Shen , Michael M. Zavlanos

We develop a variant of the stochastic prox-linear method for minimizing the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) objective. CVaR is a risk measure focused on minimizing worst-case performance, defined as the average of the top quantile of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-30 Si Yi Meng , Robert M. Gower

We study the optimal portfolio allocation problem from a Bayesian perspective using value at risk (VaR) and conditional value at risk (CVaR) as risk measures. By applying the posterior predictive distribution for the future portfolio…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2020-12-04 Taras Bodnar , Mathias Lindholm , Vilhelm Niklasson , Erik Thorsén

In this paper, probabilistic guarantees for constraint sampling of multistage robust convex optimization problems are derived. The dynamic nature of these problems is tackled via the so-called scenario-with-certificates approach. This…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-11-08 Francesca Maggioni , Marida Bertocchi , Fabrizio Dabbene , Roberto Tempo

We study a linear-quadratic, optimal control problem on a discrete, finite time horizon with distributional ambiguity, in which the cost is assessed via Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). We take steps toward deriving a scalable dynamic…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-06-28 Margaret P. Chapman , Laurent Lessard

By leveraging differentiable dynamics, Reparameterization Policy Gradient (RPG) achieves high sample efficiency. However, current approaches are hindered by two critical limitations: the under-utilization of computationally expensive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-09 Hai Zhong , Xun Wang , Zhuoran Li , Longbo Huang

A promising approach to useful computational quantum advantage is to use variational quantum algorithms for optimisation problems. Crucial for the performance of these algorithms is to ensure that the algorithm converges with high…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-06-27 Ioannis Kolotouros , Petros Wallden

Risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) aims to optimize policies that balance the expected reward and risk. In this paper, we present a novel risk-sensitive RL framework that employs an Iterated Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-05 Yu Chen , Yihan Du , Pihe Hu , Siwei Wang , Desheng Wu , Longbo Huang

We propose and analyze algorithms for distributionally robust optimization of convex losses with conditional value at risk (CVaR) and $\chi^2$ divergence uncertainty sets. We prove that our algorithms require a number of gradient…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-14 Daniel Levy , Yair Carmon , John C. Duchi , Aaron Sidford

Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) is a leading tail-risk measure in finance, central to both regulatory and portfolio optimization frameworks. Classical estimation of CVaR and its gradients relies on Monte Carlo simulation, incurring…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-19 Vasilis Skarlatos , Nikos Konofaos

We propose a distributionally robust index tracking model with the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) penalty. The model combines the idea of distributionally robust optimization for data uncertainty and the CVaR penalty to avoid large…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-12 Ruyu Wang , Yaozhong Hu , Chao Zhang

We present the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) in the context of Markov chains and Markov decision processes with reachability and mean-payoff objectives. CVaR quantifies risk by means of the expectation of the worst p-quantile. As such it…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-05-09 Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer

We present and analyze several strategies for improving the performance of stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) methods. We first show that the convergence rate of these methods can be preserved under a decreasing sequence of errors…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-08-06 Reza Babanezhad , Mohamed Osama Ahmed , Alim Virani , Mark Schmidt , Jakub Konečný , Scott Sallinen

We study a discrete-time multi-period portfolio optimization problem under an explicit constraint on the Deviation Conditional Value-at-Risk (DCVaR), defined as the excess of Conditional Value-at-Risk over expected terminal wealth. The…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2026-04-17 Jérôme Lelong , Véronique Maume-Deschamps , William Thevenot

Stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) is an optimization method originally designed for tackling machine learning problems with a finite sum structure. SVRG was later shown to work for policy evaluation, a problem in reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-22 Zilun Peng , Ahmed Touati , Pascal Vincent , Doina Precup

The ability to reuse previous policies is an important aspect of human intelligence. To achieve efficient policy reuse, a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) agent needs to decide when to reuse and which source policies to reuse. Previous…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Jin Zhang , Siyuan Li , Chongjie Zhang

A widely used technique for improving policies is success conditioning, in which one collects trajectories, identifies those that achieve a desired outcome, and updates the policy to imitate the actions taken along successful trajectories.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-01-27 Daniel Russo

Many reinforcement learning algorithms, particularly those that rely on return estimates for policy improvement, can suffer from poor sample efficiency and training instability due to high-variance return estimates. In this paper we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-06 Alexander W. Goodall , Edwin Hamel-De le Court , Francesco Belardinelli

In this paper we address the problem of decision making within a Markov decision process (MDP) framework where risk and modeling errors are taken into account. Our approach is to minimize a risk-sensitive conditional-value-at-risk (CVaR)…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-06-09 Yinlam Chow , Aviv Tamar , Shie Mannor , Marco Pavone