English
Related papers

Related papers: Learning Markov Decision Processes under Fully Ban…

200 papers

In combinatorial semi-bandits, a learner repeatedly selects from a combinatorial decision set of arms, receives the realized sum of rewards, and observes the rewards of the individual selected arms as feedback. In this paper, we extend this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-17 Yuxiao Wen

In an episodic Markov Decision Process (MDP) problem, an online algorithm chooses from a set of actions in a sequence of $H$ trials, where $H$ is the episode length, in order to maximize the total payoff of the chosen actions. Q-learning,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-07-11 Xu Zhu

We consider the problem of constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) where an agent interacts with a unichain Markov Decision Process. At every interaction, the agent obtains a reward. Further, there are $K$ cost functions. The agent aims…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-22 Mridul Agarwal , Qinbo Bai , Vaneet Aggarwal

We propose an epoch-based reinforcement learning algorithm for infinite-horizon average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) that leverages a partial order over a policy class. In this structure, $\pi' \leq \pi$ if data collected under…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-08-07 Zhongjun Zhang , Shipra Agrawal , Ilan Lobel , Sean R. Sinclair , Christina Lee Yu

Episodic reinforcement learning and contextual bandits are two widely studied sequential decision-making problems. Episodic reinforcement learning generalizes contextual bandits and is often perceived to be more difficult due to long…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-01 Zihan Zhang , Xiangyang Ji , Simon S. Du

We propose a simple model selection approach for algorithms in stochastic bandit and reinforcement learning problems. As opposed to prior work that (implicitly) assumes knowledge of the optimal regret, we only require that each base…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Aldo Pacchiano , Christoph Dann , Claudio Gentile , Peter Bartlett

We study \emph{multi-armed bandits} (MABs) augmented with \emph{best-action queries}, in which the learner may additionally query an oracle that reveals the best arm in the current round. This setting was recently characterized by Russo et…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Francesco Bacchiocchi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Francesco Emanuele Stradi

We provide an algorithm that achieves the optimal regret rate in an unknown weakly communicating Markov Decision Process (MDP). The algorithm proceeds in episodes where, in each episode, it picks a policy using regularization based on the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-05-14 Peter L. Bartlett , Ambuj Tewari

We present the first gap-dependent analysis of regret and communication cost for on-policy federated $Q$-Learning in tabular episodic finite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs). Existing FRL methods focus on worst-case scenarios,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-09-19 Haochen Zhang , Zhong Zheng , Lingzhou Xue

Strong worst-case performance bounds for episodic reinforcement learning exist but fortunately in practice RL algorithms perform much better than such bounds would predict. Algorithms and theory that provide strong problem-dependent bounds…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Andrea Zanette , Emma Brunskill

We study online learning of finite Markov decision process (MDP) problems when a side information vector is available. The problem is motivated by applications such as clinical trials, recommendation systems, etc. Such applications have an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-06-27 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Gergely Neu

Reinforcement learning algorithms are typically designed for generic Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where any state-action pair can lead to an arbitrary transition distribution. In many practical systems, however, only a subset of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-05 Davide Maran , Davide Salaorni , Marcello Restelli

We consider a combinatorial generalization of the classical multi-armed bandit problem that is defined as follows. There is a given bipartite graph of $M$ users and $N \geq M$ resources. For each user-resource pair $(i,j)$, there is an…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-03-17 Yi Gai , Bhaskar Krishnamachari , Mingyan Liu

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 propose a new regret minimization algorithm for episodic sparse linear Markov decision process (SMDP) where the state-transition distribution is a linear function of observed features. The only previously known algorithm for SMDP…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-25 Wonyoung Kim , Garud Iyengar , Assaf Zeevi

We study online learning in episodic constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), where the learner aims at collecting as much reward as possible over the episodes, while satisfying some long-term constraints during the learning process.…

We consider a policy gradient algorithm applied to a finite-arm bandit problem with Bernoulli rewards. We allow learning rates to depend on the current state of the algorithm, rather than use a deterministic time-decreasing learning rate.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-24 Denis Denisov , Neil Walton

In this paper, we study a variant of the framework of online learning using expert advice with limited/bandit feedback. We consider each expert as a learning entity, seeking to more accurately reflecting certain real-world applications. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-02-21 Adish Singla , Hamed Hassani , Andreas Krause

We consider a two-agent MDP framework where agents repeatedly solve a task in a collaborative setting. We study the problem of designing a learning algorithm for the first agent (A1) that facilitates a successful collaboration even in cases…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-21 Goran Radanovic , Rati Devidze , David C. Parkes , Adish Singla

This paper is devoted to the extension of the regret lower bound beyond ergodic Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the problem dependent setting. While the regret lower bound for ergodic MDPs is well-known and reached by tractable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-23 Victor Boone , Odalric-Ambrym Maillard