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We develop several new algorithms for learning Markov Decision Processes in an infinite-horizon average-reward setting with linear function approximation. Using the optimism principle and assuming that the MDP has a linear structure, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-27 Chen-Yu Wei , Mehdi Jafarnia-Jahromi , Haipeng Luo , Rahul Jain

We study online learning in \emph{constrained MDPs} (CMDPs), focusing on the goal of attaining sublinear strong regret and strong cumulative constraint violation. Differently from their standard (weak) counterparts, these metrics do not…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-04 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We introduce two new no-regret algorithms for the stochastic shortest path (SSP) problem with a linear MDP that significantly improve over the only existing results of (Vial et al., 2021). Our first algorithm is computationally efficient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-21 Liyu Chen , Rahul Jain , Haipeng Luo

Learning Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the presence of the adversary is a challenging problem in reinforcement learning (RL). In this paper, we study RL in episodic MDPs with adversarial reward and full information feedback, where the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-21 Jiafan He , Dongruo Zhou , Quanquan Gu

We present two Policy Gradient-based algorithms with general parametrization in the context of infinite-horizon average reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). The first one employs Implicit Gradient Transport for variance reduction, ensuring…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Swetha Ganesh , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

We define the problem of linear Contextual Stochastic Shortest Path (CSSP), where at the beginning of each episode, the learner observes an adversarially chosen context that determines the MDP through a fixed but unknown linear function.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-18 Dor Polikar , Alon Cohen

Reinforcement learning (RL) in large environments often suffers from severe computational bottlenecks, as conventional regret minimization algorithms require repeated, costly calls to planning and statistical estimation oracles. While…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-04 Haichen Hu , Jian Qian , David Simchi-Levi

This work studies online episodic tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs) with known transitions and develops best-of-both-worlds algorithms that achieve refined data-dependent regret bounds in the adversarial regime and variance-dependent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Mingyi Li , Taira Tsuchiya , Kenji Yamanishi

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

Motivated by the recent discovery of a statistical and computational reduction from contextual bandits to offline regression (Simchi-Levi and Xu, 2021), we address the general (stochastic) Contextual Markov Decision Process (CMDP) problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-29 Jian Qian , Haichen Hu , David Simchi-Levi

In this paper, we consider an infinite horizon average reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). Distinguishing itself from existing works within this context, our approach harnesses the power of the general policy gradient-based algorithm,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-06 Qinbo Bai , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

We consider an agent interacting with an environment in a single stream of actions, observations, and rewards, with no reset. This process is not assumed to be a Markov Decision Process (MDP). Rather, the agent has several representations…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-03-19 Odalric-Ambrym Maillard , Phuong Nguyen , Ronald Ortner , Daniil Ryabko

We study a new class of MDPs that employs multinomial logit (MNL) function approximation to ensure valid probability distributions over the state space. Despite its significant benefits, incorporating the non-linear function raises…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-17 Long-Fei Li , Yu-Jie Zhang , Peng Zhao , Zhi-Hua Zhou

In recent years, significant attention has been directed towards learning average-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). However, existing algorithms either suffer from sub-optimal regret guarantees or computational inefficiencies. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Victor Boone , Zihan Zhang

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

Online reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) remains less theoretically and algorithmically developed than its episodic counterpart, with many algorithms suffering from high ``burn-in'' costs and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-26 Guy Zamir , Matthew Zurek , Yudong Chen

We study reinforcement learning for episodic Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) whose transitions are modelled by a multinomial logistic (MNL) model. Existing algorithms for MNL mixture MDPs yield a regret of $\smash{\tilde{O}(dH^2\sqrt{T})}$…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-20 Pierre Boudart , Pierre Gaillard , Alessandro Rudi

Online safe reinforcement learning (RL) plays a key role in dynamic environments, with applications in autonomous driving, robotics, and cybersecurity. The objective is to learn optimal policies that maximize rewards while satisfying safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Jiahui Zhu , Kihyun Yu , Dabeen Lee , Xin Liu , Honghao Wei

We present the first finite time global convergence analysis of policy gradient in the context of infinite horizon average reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). Specifically, we focus on ergodic tabular MDPs with finite state and action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-12 Navdeep Kumar , Yashaswini Murthy , Itai Shufaro , Kfir Y. Levy , R. Srikant , Shie Mannor

We consider online learning problems in the realizable setting, where there is a zero-loss solution, and propose new Differentially Private (DP) algorithms that obtain near-optimal regret bounds. For the problem of online prediction from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-01 Hilal Asi , Vitaly Feldman , Tomer Koren , Kunal Talwar