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We study the problem of learning general (i.e., not necessarily homogeneous) halfspaces with Random Classification Noise under the Gaussian distribution. We establish nearly-matching algorithmic and Statistical Query (SQ) lower bound…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-18 Ilias Diakonikolas , Jelena Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Puqian Wang , Nikos Zarifis

The paper introduces the first formulation of convex Q-learning for Markov decision processes with function approximation. The algorithms and theory rest on a relaxation of a dual of Manne's celebrated linear programming characterization of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-12 Fan Lu , Sean Meyn

In this article we establish central limit theorems for multilevel Polyak-Ruppert averaged stochastic approximation schemes. We work under very mild technical assumptions and consider the slow regime in wich typical errors decay like…

Probability · Mathematics 2019-12-18 Steffen Dereich

We study the approximability of general convex sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$ by intersections of halfspaces, where the approximation quality is measured with respect to the standard Gaussian distribution $N(0,I_n)$ and the complexity of an…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2023-11-16 Anindya De , Shivam Nadimpalli , Rocco A. Servedio

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Zijun Chen , Zaiwei Chen , Nian Si , Shengbo Wang

Two-time-scale Stochastic Approximation (SA) is an iterative algorithm with applications in reinforcement learning and optimization. Prior finite time analysis of such algorithms has focused on fixed point iterations with mappings…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-30 Siddharth Chandak , Shaan Ul Haque , Nicholas Bambos

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-09 Adithya M. Devraj , Sean P. Meyn

Stochastic approximation (SA) is an iterative algorithm for finding the fixed point of an operator using noisy samples and widely used in optimization and Reinforcement Learning (RL). The noise in RL exhibits a Markovian structure, and in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Shaan Ul Haque , Sajad Khodadadian , Siva Theja Maguluri

This paper develops an unified framework to study finite-sample convergence guarantees of a large class of value-based asynchronous reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. We do this by first reformulating the RL algorithms as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-06 Zaiwei Chen , Siva Theja Maguluri , Sanjay Shakkottai , Karthikeyan Shanmugam

Federated Learning has gained traction in privacy-sensitive collaborative environments, with local SGD emerging as a key optimization method in decentralized settings. While its convergence properties are well-studied, asymptotic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-08 Soham Bonnerjee , Sayar Karmakar , Wei Biao Wu

We describe a general technique that yields the first {\em Statistical Query lower bounds} for a range of fundamental high-dimensional learning problems involving Gaussian distributions. Our main results are for the problems of (1) learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-05-18 Ilias Diakonikolas , Daniel M. Kane , Alistair Stewart

Let $g: \{-1,1\}^k \to \{-1,1\}$ be any Boolean function and $q_1,\dots,q_k$ be any degree-2 polynomials over $\{-1,1\}^n.$ We give a \emph{deterministic} algorithm which, given as input explicit descriptions of $g,q_1,\dots,q_k$ and an…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2013-11-28 Anindya De , Ilias Diakonikolas , Rocco A. Servedio

In this paper we study algorithms to find a Gaussian approximation to a target measure defined on a Hilbert space of functions; the target measure itself is defined via its density with respect to a reference Gaussian measure. We employ the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2014-08-11 Frank J. Pinski , Gideon Simpson , Andrew M. Stuart , Hendrik Weber

We study the extent to which wide neural networks may be approximated by Gaussian processes when initialized with random weights. It is a well-established fact that as the width of a network goes to infinity, its law converges to that of a…

Probability · Mathematics 2021-02-18 Ronen Eldan , Dan Mikulincer , Tselil Schramm

In this paper, as a study of reinforcement learning, we converge the Q function to unbounded rewards such as Gaussian distribution. From the central limit theorem, in some real-world applications it is natural to assume that rewards follow…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-14 Konatsu Miyamoto , Masaya Suzuki , Yuma Kigami , Kodai Satake

We present a distributional approach to theoretical analyses of reinforcement learning algorithms for constant step-sizes. We demonstrate its effectiveness by presenting simple and unified proofs of convergence for a variety of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-30 Philip Amortila , Doina Precup , Prakash Panangaden , Marc G. Bellemare

Stochastic approximation (SA) is a method for finding the root of an operator perturbed by noise. There is a rich literature establishing the asymptotic normality of rescaled SA iterates under fairly mild conditions. However, these…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-17 Shaan Ul Haque , Zedong Wang , Zixuan Zhang , Siva Theja Maguluri

We study reinforcement learning with linear function approximation and finite-memory approximations for partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs). We first present an algorithm for the value evaluation of finite-memory feedback…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-22 Ali Devran Kara

Approximating the solution of the nonlinear filtering problem with Gaussian mixtures has been a very popular method since the 1970s. However, the vast majority of such approximations are introduced in an ad-hoc manner without theoretical…

Probability · Mathematics 2014-01-28 Dan Crisan , Kai Li

Building on the blueprint from Goemans and Williamson (1995) for the Max-Cut problem, we construct a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for orthogonally constrained quadratic optimization problems. First, we derive a semidefinite…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-17 Ryan Cory-Wright , Jean Pauphilet