Related papers: Sample-Adaptivity Tradeoff in On-Demand Sampling
We seek to understand what facilitates sample-efficient learning from historical datasets for sequential decision-making, a problem that is popularly known as offline reinforcement learning (RL). Further, we are interested in algorithms…
In this paper, we consider the unconstrained submodular maximization problem. We propose the first algorithm for this problem that achieves a tight $(1/2-\varepsilon)$-approximation guarantee using $\tilde{O}(\varepsilon^{-1})$ adaptive…
In the Best-$k$-Arm problem, we are given $n$ stochastic bandit arms, each associated with an unknown reward distribution. We are required to identify the $k$ arms with the largest means by taking as few samples as possible. In this paper,…
We present a near-optimal distributed algorithm for $(1+o(1))$-approximation of single-commodity maximum flow in undirected weighted networks that runs in $(D+ \sqrt{n})\cdot n^{o(1)}$ communication rounds in the \Congest model. Here, $n$…
Residential loads have great potential to enhance the efficiency and reliability of electricity systems via demand response (DR) programs. One major challenge in residential DR is to handle the unknown and uncertain customer behaviors.…
We study monotonicity testing of functions $f \colon \{0,1\}^d \to \{0,1\}$ using sample-based algorithms, which are only allowed to observe the value of $f$ on points drawn independently from the uniform distribution. A classic result by…
Group distributionally robust optimization (GDRO) aims to develop models that perform well across $m$ distributions simultaneously. Existing GDRO algorithms can only process a fixed number of samples per iteration, either 1 or $m$, and…
Q-learning, which seeks to learn the optimal Q-function of a Markov decision process (MDP) in a model-free fashion, lies at the heart of reinforcement learning. When it comes to the synchronous setting (such that independent samples for all…
This work studies the statistical limits of uniform convergence for offline policy evaluation (OPE) problems with model-based methods (for episodic MDP) and provides a unified framework towards optimal learning for several well-motivated…
We revisit the classical problem of finding an approximately stationary point of the average of $n$ smooth and possibly nonconvex functions. The optimal complexity of stochastic first-order methods in terms of the number of gradient…
Hypothesis Selection is a fundamental distribution learning problem where given a comparator-class $Q=\{q_1,\ldots, q_n\}$ of distributions, and a sampling access to an unknown target distribution $p$, the goal is to output a distribution…
Distributed multi-party learning provides an effective approach for training a joint model with scattered data under legal and practical constraints. However, due to the quagmire of a skewed distribution of data labels across participants…
We consider the problem of learning the optimal action-value function in the discounted-reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). We prove a new PAC bound on the sample-complexity of model-based value iteration algorithm in the presence of…
Sample complexity bounds are a common performance metric in the Reinforcement Learning literature. In the discounted cost, infinite horizon setting, all of the known bounds have a factor that is a polynomial in $1/(1-\gamma)$, where $\gamma…
Many problems in signal processing and machine learning can be formalized as weak submodular optimization tasks. For such problems, a simple greedy algorithm (\textsc{Greedy}) is guaranteed to find a solution achieving the objective with a…
We consider the problem of adaptive stratified sampling for Monte Carlo integration of a differentiable function given a finite number of evaluations to the function. We construct a sampling scheme that samples more often in regions where…
This paper considers the sample-efficiency of preference learning, which models and predicts human choices based on comparative judgments. The minimax optimal estimation error rate $\Theta(d/n)$ in classical estimation theory requires that…
Recent theoretical work studies sample-efficient reinforcement learning (RL) extensively in two settings: learning interactively in the environment (online RL), or learning from an offline dataset (offline RL). However, existing algorithms…
A variety of complex biological, natural and man-made systems exhibit non-Markovian dynamics that can be modeled through fractional order differential equations, yet, we lack sample comlexity aware system identification strategies. Towards…
Motion planning under differential constraints is a classic problem in robotics. To date, the state of the art is represented by sampling-based techniques, with the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree algorithm as a leading example. Yet, the…