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We establish a connection between distributionally robust optimization (DRO) and classical robust statistics. We demonstrate that this connection arises naturally in the context of estimation under data corruption, where the goal is to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-10-21 Gabriel Chan , Bart Van Parys , Amine Bennouna

We model learning in a continuous-time Brownian setting where there is prior ambiguity. The associated model of preference values robustness and is time-consistent. It is applied to study optimal learning when the choice between actions can…

Economics · Quantitative Finance 2019-03-06 Larry G. Epstein , Shaolin Ji

When a statistical model $\{P_{\theta} : \theta \in \Theta\}$ lacks analytically tractable likelihoods, parametric statistical inference based on data generated from an unknown underlying distribution $P$ can still be performed as long as…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-19 Peter Matthew Jacobs , Lekha Patel , Anirban Bhattacharya , Debdeep Pati

We consider the problem of stochastic optimal control, where the state-feedback control policies take the form of a probability distribution and where a penalty on the entropy is added. By viewing the cost function as a Kullback- Leibler…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-12 Marc Lambert , Francis Bach , Silvère Bonnabel

An optimal transport problem on finite spaces is a linear program. Recently, a relaxation of the optimal transport problem via strictly convex functions, especially via the Kullback--Leibler divergence, sheds new light on data sciences.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-03 Asuka Takatsu

While progress has been made in understanding the robustness of machine learning classifiers to test-time adversaries (evasion attacks), fundamental questions remain unresolved. In this paper, we use optimal transport to characterize the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-01 Arjun Nitin Bhagoji , Daniel Cullina , Prateek Mittal

We study the problem of characterizing the stability of Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence under Gaussian perturbations beyond Gaussian families. Existing relaxed triangle inequalities for KL divergence critically rely on the assumption that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Jialu Pan , Yufeng Zhang , Nan Hu , Zhenbang Chen , Ji Wang , Keqin Li

Consider the nonparametric logistic regression problem. In the logistic regression, we usually consider the maximum likelihood estimator, and the excess risk is the expectation of the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between the true and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-02-26 Atsutomo Yara , Yoshikazu Terada

We obtain an explicit solution for the static Kullback--Leibler (KL) unbalanced optimal transport problem between finite non-degenerate Gaussian measures with quadratic cost, two independent positive marginal relaxation parameters, and no…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-05 Jiaping Yang , Yunxin Zhang

We pose the Kantorovich optimal transport problem as a min-max problem with a Nash equilibrium that can be obtained dynamically via a two-player game, providing a framework for approximating optimal couplings. We prove convergence of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-28 Lauren Conger , Franca Hoffmann , Ricardo Baptista , Eric Mazumdar

Derivative based optimization methods are efficient at solving optimal control problems near local optima. However, their ability to converge halts when derivative information vanishes. The inference approach to optimal control does not…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-03-01 Daniel Layeghi , Steve Tonneau , Michael Mistry

We consider optimal sequential allocation in the context of the so-called stochastic multi-armed bandit model. We describe a generic index policy, in the sense of Gittins [J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B Stat. Methodol. 41 (1979) 148-177], based on…

We discuss optimal prediction for families of probability distributions with a locally compact topological group structure. Right-invariant priors were previously shown to yield a posterior predictive distribution minimizing the worst-case…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Jannis Bolik , Thomas Hofmann

We study the problem of $K$-armed bandits with reward distributions belonging to a one-parameter exponential distribution family. In the literature, several criteria have been proposed to evaluate the performance of such algorithms,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-28 Hao Qin , Kwang-Sung Jun , Chicheng Zhang

Accelerated algorithms for maximum likelihood image reconstruction are essential for emerging applications such as 3D tomography, dynamic tomographic imaging, and other high dimensional inverse problems. In this paper, we introduce and…

Computation · Statistics 2012-01-31 Stéphane Chrétien , Alfred O. Hero

Robust and distributionally robust optimization are modeling paradigms for decision-making under uncertainty where the uncertain parameters are only known to reside in an uncertainty set or are governed by any probability distribution from…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-21 Jianzhe Zhen , Daniel Kuhn , Wolfram Wiesemann

We address the problem of Schr\"odinger potential estimation, which plays a crucial role in modern generative modelling approaches based on Schr\"odinger bridges and stochastic optimal control for SDEs. Given a simple prior diffusion…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Nikita Puchkin , Iurii Pustovalov , Yuri Sapronov , Denis Suchkov , Alexey Naumov , Denis Belomestny

We study optimal solutions to an abstract optimization problem for measures, which is a generalization of classical variational problems in information theory and statistical physics. In the classical problems, information and relative…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-23 Roman V. Belavkin

We introduce a stochastic approximation method for the solution of an ergodic Kullback-Leibler control problem. A Kullback-Leibler control problem is a Markov decision process on a finite state space in which the control cost is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-02-17 Joris Bierkens , Bert Kappen

We present a novel distributionally robust framework for dynamic programming that uses kernel methods to design feedback control policies. Specifically, we leverage kernel mean embedding to map the transition probabilities governing the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-12-20 Licio Romao , Ashish R. Hota , Alessandro Abate