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We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic MDPs with adversarial full-information reward feedback and unknown fixed transition kernels. We propose two model-free policy optimization algorithms, POWER and POWER++, and establish…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-02 Yingjie Fei , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang , Qiaomin Xie

Recently, several studies (Zhou et al., 2021a; Zhang et al., 2021b; Kim et al., 2021; Zhou and Gu, 2022) have provided variance-dependent regret bounds for linear contextual bandits, which interpolates the regret for the worst-case regime…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Heyang Zhao , Jiafan He , Dongruo Zhou , Tong Zhang , Quanquan Gu

We consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with deterministic transitions and study the problem of regret minimization, which is central to the analysis and design of optimal learning algorithms. We present logarithmic problem-specific…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Damianos Tranos , Alexandre Proutiere

We consider estimation and control in linear time-varying dynamical systems from the perspective of regret minimization. Unlike most prior work in this area, we focus on the problem of designing causal estimators and controllers which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-24 Gautam Goel , Babak Hassibi

We consider learning in an adversarial Markov Decision Process (MDP) where the loss functions can change arbitrarily over $K$ episodes and the state space can be arbitrarily large. We assume that the Q-function of any policy is linear in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-05 Yan Dai , Haipeng Luo , Chen-Yu Wei , Julian Zimmert

We introduce and analyse two algorithms for exploration-exploitation in discrete and continuous Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) based on exploration bonuses. SCAL$^+$ is a variant of SCAL (Fruit et al., 2018) that performs efficient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-12-12 Jian Qian , Ronan Fruit , Matteo Pirotta , Alessandro Lazaric

This paper initiates the study of scale-free learning in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where the scale of rewards/losses is unknown to the learner. We design a generic algorithmic framework, \underline{S}cale \underline{C}lipping…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-05 Mingyu Chen , Xuezhou Zhang

The principle of optimism in the face of uncertainty is prevalent throughout sequential decision making problems such as multi-armed bandits and reinforcement learning (RL). To be successful, an optimistic RL algorithm must over-estimate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-07 Aldo Pacchiano , Philip J. Ball , Jack Parker-Holder , Krzysztof Choromanski , Stephen Roberts

We develop a new approach to obtaining high probability regret bounds for online learning with bandit feedback against an adaptive adversary. While existing approaches all require carefully constructing optimistic and biased loss…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-02 Chung-Wei Lee , Haipeng Luo , Chen-Yu Wei , Mengxiao Zhang

This paper studies the safe reinforcement learning problem formulated as an episodic finite-horizon tabular constrained Markov decision process with an unknown transition kernel and stochastic reward and cost functions. We propose a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-15 Kihyun Yu , Duksang Lee , William Overman , Dabeen Lee

We propose novel classical and quantum online algorithms for learning finite-horizon and infinite-horizon average-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Our algorithms are based on a hybrid exploration-generative reinforcement learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-12 Andris Ambainis , Joao F. Doriguello , Debbie Lim

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

We consider the problem of learning to optimize an unknown Markov decision process (MDP). We show that, if the MDP can be parameterized within some known function class, we can obtain regret bounds that scale with the dimensionality, rather…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-11-04 Ian Osband , Benjamin Van Roy

We develop a model selection approach to tackle reinforcement learning with adversarial corruption in both transition and reward. For finite-horizon tabular MDPs, without prior knowledge on the total amount of corruption, our algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-31 Chen-Yu Wei , Christoph Dann , Julian Zimmert

Recently, much work has been done on extending the scope of online learning and incremental stochastic optimization algorithms. In this paper we contribute to this effort in two ways: First, based on a new regret decomposition and a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-09-12 Pooria Joulani , András György , Csaba Szepesvári

We consider online learning for episodic stochastically constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), which plays a central role in ensuring the safety of reinforcement learning. Here the loss function can vary arbitrarily across the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-19 Shuang Qiu , Xiaohan Wei , Zhuoran Yang , Jieping Ye , Zhaoran Wang

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

In online learning problems, exploiting low variance plays an important role in obtaining tight performance guarantees yet is challenging because variances are often not known a priori. Recently, considerable progress has been made by Zhang…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-07 Yeoneung Kim , Insoon Yang , Kwang-Sung Jun

We develop the first parameter-free algorithms for the Stochastically Extended Adversarial (SEA) model, a framework that bridges adversarial and stochastic online convex optimization. Existing approaches for the SEA model require prior…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-07 Shuche Wang , Adarsh Barik , Peng Zhao , Vincent Y. F. Tan

In two-player zero-sum games, the learning dynamic based on optimistic Hedge achieves one of the best-known regret upper bounds among strongly-uncoupled learning dynamics. With an appropriately chosen learning rate, the social and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Taira Tsuchiya