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We consider data-driven approaches that integrate a machine learning prediction model within distributionally robust optimization (DRO) given limited joint observations of uncertain parameters and covariates. Our framework is flexible in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-26 Rohit Kannan , Güzin Bayraksan , James R. Luedtke

We present a general duality result for Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization that holds for any Kantorovich transport cost, measurable loss function, and nominal probability distribution. Assuming an interchangeability principle…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-26 Luhao Zhang , Jincheng Yang , Rui Gao

We consider statistical methods which invoke a min-max distributionally robust formulation to extract good out-of-sample performance in data-driven optimization and learning problems. Acknowledging the distributional uncertainty in learning…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-08-05 Jose Blanchet , Karthyek Murthy , Viet Anh Nguyen

The performance of learning models often deteriorates when deployed in out-of-sample environments. To ensure reliable deployment, we propose a stability evaluation criterion based on distributional perturbations. Conceptually, our stability…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-05-07 Jose Blanchet , Peng Cui , Jiajin Li , Jiashuo Liu

Structuring ambiguity sets in Wasserstein-based distributionally robust optimization (DRO) can improve their statistical properties when the uncertainty consists of multiple independent components. The aim of this paper is to solve…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-10 Lotfi M. Chaouach , Tom Oomen , Dimitris Boskos

Reinforcement learning (RL) policies often fail under dynamics that differ from training, a gap not fully addressed by domain randomization or existing adversarial RL methods. Distributionally robust RL provides a formal remedy but still…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-16 Mintae Kim , Koushil Sreenath

Optimal-Transport Distributionally Robust Optimization (OT-DRO) robustifies data-driven decision-making under uncertainty by capturing the sampling-induced statistical error via optimal transport ambiguity sets. The standard OT-DRO pipeline…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-17 Jonas Ohnemus , Marta Fochesato , Riccardo Zuliani , John Lygeros

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) studies decision problems under uncertainty where the probability distribution governing the uncertain problem parameters is itself uncertain. A key component of any DRO model is its ambiguity set,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-28 Daniel Kuhn , Soroosh Shafiee , Wolfram Wiesemann

Regularization is a central tool for addressing ill-posedness in inverse problems and statistical estimation, with the choice of a suitable penalty often determining the reliability and interpretability of downstream solutions. While recent…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-07 Oscar Leong , Eliza O'Reilly , Yong Sheng Soh

The study of robustness has received much attention due to its inevitability in data-driven settings where many systems face uncertainty. One such example of concern is Bayesian Optimization (BO), where uncertainty is multi-faceted, yet…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Hisham Husain , Vu Nguyen , Anton van den Hengel

We develop and analyze algorithms for distributionally robust optimization (DRO) of convex losses. In particular, we consider group-structured and bounded $f$-divergence uncertainty sets. Our approach relies on an accelerated method that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-25 Yair Carmon , Danielle Hausler

In convex optimization, duality theory can sometimes lead to simpler solution methods than those resulting from direct primal analysis. In this paper, this principle is applied to a class of composite variational problems arising in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-06-22 Patrick L. Combettes , Dinh Dung , Bang Cong Vu

Noisy data are often viewed as a challenge for decision-making. This paper studies a distributionally robust optimization (DRO) that shows how such noise can be systematically incorporated. Rather than applying DRO to the noisy empirical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-03 Chung-Han Hsieh , Rong Gan

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) is a powerful tool for decision making under uncertainty. It is particularly appealing because of its ability to leverage existing data. However, many practical problems call for decision-making…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-04 Yuxiao Chen , Jip Kim , James Anderson

Data-driven distributionally robust optimization is a recently emerging paradigm aimed at finding a solution that is driven by sample data but is protected against sampling errors. An increasingly popular approach, known as Wasserstein…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-07-20 Jonathan Yu-Meng Li , Tiantian Mao

Distributionally robust optimization has been shown to offer a principled way to regularize learning models. In this paper, we find that Tikhonov regularization is distributionally robust in an optimal transport sense (i.e., if an adversary…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-05 Jiajin Li , Sirui Lin , Jose Blanchet , Viet Anh Nguyen

Federated learning (FL) enables collaborative model training without direct data sharing, but its performance can degrade significantly in the presence of data distribution perturbations. Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) provides…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-30 Zifan Wang , Xinlei Yi , Xenia Konti , Michael M. Zavlanos , Karl H. Johansson

This work studies the distributionally robust evaluation of expected values over temporal data. A set of alternative measures is characterized by the causal optimal transport. We prove the strong duality and recast the causality constraint…

Mathematical Finance · Quantitative Finance 2025-06-18 Bingyan Han

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) is a worst-case framework for stochastic optimization under uncertainty that has drawn fast-growing studies in recent years. When the underlying probability distribution is unknown and observed…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-08-16 Shengyi He , Henry Lam

This paper associates a dual problem to the minimization of an arbitrary linear perturbation of the robust sum function introduced in DOI 10.1007/s11228-019-00515-2. It provides an existence theorem for primal optimal solutions and, under…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-07 Nguyen Dinh , Miguel A. Goberna , Michel Volle