Related papers: Reward Redistribution for CVaR MDPs using a Bellma…
We consider Markov Decision Problems defined over continuous state and action spaces, where an autonomous agent seeks to learn a map from its states to actions so as to maximize its long-term discounted accumulation of rewards. We address…
Conventional off-policy reinforcement learning (RL) focuses on maximizing the expected return of scalar rewards. Distributional RL (DRL), in contrast, studies the distribution of returns with the distributional Bellman operator in a…
The ability to make optimal decisions under uncertainty remains important across a variety of disciplines from portfolio management to power engineering. This generally implies applying some safety margins on uncertain parameters that may…
The dynamic portfolio construction problem requires dynamic modeling of the joint distribution of multivariate stock returns. To achieve this, we propose a dynamic generative factor model which uses random variable transformation as an…
We consider a class of risk-averse submodular maximization problems (RASM) where the objective is the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) of a random nondecreasing submodular function at a given risk level. We propose valid inequalities and an…
This paper addresses objectives tailored to the risk-averse optimization of accumulated rewards in Markov decision processes (MDPs). The studied objectives require maximizing the expected value of the accumulated rewards minus a penalty…
We study the problem of estimating Dynamic Discrete Choice (DDC) models, also known as offline Maximum Entropy-Regularized Inverse Reinforcement Learning (offline MaxEnt-IRL) in machine learning. The objective is to recover reward or $Q^*$…
The Pickands estimator for the extreme value index is beneficial due to its universal consistency, location, and scale invariance, which sets it apart from other types of estimators. However, similar to many extreme value index estimators,…
Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) is widely used to account for the preferences of a risk-averse agent in the extreme loss scenarios. To study the effectiveness of randomization in interdiction games with an interdictor that is both risk and…
We introduce a fast and scalable method for solving quadratic programs with conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) constraints. While these problems can be formulated as standard quadratic programs, the number of variables and constraints grows…
Markov decision problems are most commonly solved via dynamic programming. Another approach is Bellman residual minimization, which directly minimizes the squared Bellman residual objective function. However, compared to dynamic…
Learning continuous control in high-dimensional sparse reward settings, such as robotic manipulation, is a challenging problem due to the number of samples often required to obtain accurate optimal value and policy estimates. While many…
We study the dynamic programming approach to revenue management in the context of attended home delivery. We draw on results from dynamic programming theory for Markov decision problems to show that the underlying Bellman operator has a…
Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) in real-world use cases may need to adapt to external natural language instructions that interrupt ongoing behavior and conflict with long-horizon objectives. However, conditioning rewards on…
Risk measures are important key figures to measure the adequacy of the reserves of a company. The most common risk measures in practice are Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). Recently, quantum-based algorithms are…
Deterministic optimal impulse control problem with terminal state constraint is considered. Due to the appearance of the terminal state constraint, the value function might be discontinuous in general. The main contribution of this paper is…
Value-at-risk (VaR) has been playing the role of a standard risk measure since its introduction. In practice, the delta-normal approach is usually adopted to approximate the VaR of portfolios with option positions. Its effectiveness,…
In order to model risk aversion in reinforcement learning, an emerging line of research adapts familiar algorithms to optimize coherent risk functionals, a class that includes conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). Because optimizing the…
We present the convergence rates of synchronous and asynchronous Q-learning for average-reward Markov decision processes, where the absence of contraction poses a fundamental challenge. Existing non-asymptotic results overcome this…
We introduce a class of variational actor-critic algorithms based on a variational formulation over both the value function and the policy. The objective function of the variational formulation consists of two parts: one for maximizing the…