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Sample average approximation--based stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) and model predictive control (MPC) are two different methods for approaching multistage stochastic optimization. In this paper we investigate the conditions under…

This paper is devoted to fair optimization in Multiobjective Markov Decision Processes (MOMDPs). A MOMDP is an extension of the MDP model for planning under uncertainty while trying to optimize several reward functions simultaneously. This…

Stochastic optimization methods have actively been playing a critical role in modern machine learning algorithms to deliver decent performance. While numerous works have proposed and developed diverse approaches, first-order and…

In this paper, we study planning in stochastic systems, modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs), with preferences over temporally extended goals. Prior work on temporal planning with preferences assumes that the user preferences form a…

Classical convergence analyses for optimization algorithms rely on the widely-adopted uniform smoothness assumption. However, recent experimental studies have demonstrated that many machine learning problems exhibit non-uniform smoothness,…

Stochastic optimization of continuous objectives is at the heart of modern machine learning. However, many important problems are of discrete nature and often involve submodular objectives. We seek to unleash the power of stochastic…

We consider model-free reinforcement learning for infinite-horizon discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with a continuous state space and unknown transition kernel, when only a single sample path under an arbitrary policy of the…

Stochastic optimal control, which has the goal of driving the behavior of noisy systems, is broadly applicable in science, engineering and artificial intelligence. Our work introduces Stochastic Optimal Control Matching (SOCM), a novel…

Search-based software testing (SBST) is a widely adopted technique for testing complex systems with large input spaces, such as Deep Learning-enabled (DL-enabled) systems. Many SBST techniques focus on Pareto-based optimization, where…

We study and provide efficient algorithms for multi-objective model checking problems for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Given an MDP, M, and given multiple linear-time (\omega -regular or LTL) properties \varphi\_i, and probabilities…

Multi-objective optimization (MOO) has become an influential framework in many machine learning problems with multiple objectives such as learning with multiple criteria and multi-task learning (MTL). In this paper, we propose a new…

Majorization-minimization schemes are a broad class of iterative methods targeting general optimization problems, including nonconvex, nonsmooth and stochastic. These algorithms minimize successively a sequence of upper bounds of the…

In real-world applications, it is important for machine learning algorithms to be robust against data outliers or corruptions. In this paper, we focus on improving the robustness of a large class of learning algorithms that are formulated…

Reward fine-tuning of diffusion and flow models and sampling from tilted or Boltzmann distributions can both be formulated as stochastic optimal control (SOC) problems, where learning an optimal generative dynamics corresponds to optimizing…

In this paper we study stochastic quasi-Newton methods for nonconvex stochastic optimization, where we assume that only stochastic information of the gradients of the objective function is available via a stochastic first-order oracle…

Preferences play a key role in determining what goals/constraints to satisfy when not all constraints can be satisfied simultaneously. In this paper, we study how to synthesize preference satisfying plans in stochastic systems, modeled as…

We study the problem of zero-delay coding for the transmission of a Markov source over a noisy channel with feedback and present a reinforcement learning solution which is guaranteed to achieve near-optimality. To this end, we formulate the…

We propose a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method that can incorporate adaptive sampling for stochastic nonsmooth nonconvex optimization problems with upper-C^2 objectives. Upper-$\Ctwo$ functions can be viewed as…

Text-to-image generation models have achieved remarkable progress in preference optimization, yet achieving robust alignment across diverse reward models remains a significant challenge. Existing multi-reward fusion approaches rely on…

We study fundamental limits of first-order stochastic optimization in a range of nonconvex settings, including L-smooth functions satisfying Quasar-Convexity (QC), Quadratic Growth (QG), and Restricted Secant Inequalities (RSI). While the…