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We propose a distributionally robust return-risk model for Markov decision processes (MDPs) under risk and reward ambiguity. The proposed model optimizes the weighted average of mean and percentile performances, and it covers the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-05 Haolin Ruan , Zhi Chen , Chin Pang Ho

We introduce and study a variational framework for the analysis of empirical risk based inference for dynamical systems and ergodic processes. The analysis applies to a two-stage estimation procedure in which (i) the trajectory of an…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2018-01-24 Kevin McGoff , Andrew B. Nobel

In this paper, we study a discrete-time stochastic optimal control problem under distribution uncertainty with convex control domain. By weak convergence method and Sion's minimax theorem, we obtain the variational inequality for cost…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-28 Mingshang Hu , Shaolin Ji , Xiaojuan Li

Optimal transport has recently been brought forward as a tool for modeling and efficiently solving a variety of flow problems, such as origin-destination problems and multi-commodity flow problems. Although the framework has shown to be…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-29 Anqi Dong , Karl Henrik Johansson , Johan Karlsson

We introduce a universal framework for mean-covariance robust risk measurement and portfolio optimization. We model uncertainty in terms of the Gelbrich distance on the mean-covariance space, along with prior structural information about…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2025-10-02 Viet Anh Nguyen , Soroosh Shafiee , Damir Filipović , Daniel Kuhn

In recent years, two prominent paradigms have shaped distributionally robust optimization (DRO), modeling distributional ambiguity through $\phi$-divergences and Wasserstein distances, respectively. While the former focuses on ambiguity in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-22 Jose Blanchet , Daniel Kuhn , Jiajin Li , Bahar Taskesen

The classical (overdamped) Langevin dynamics provide a natural algorithm for sampling from its invariant measure, which uniquely minimizes an energy functional over the space of probability measures, and which concentrates around the…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-09-26 Giovanni Conforti , Daniel Lacker , Soumik Pal

We consider the problem of minimizing a convex function that is evolving according to unknown and possibly stochastic dynamics, which may depend jointly on time and on the decision variable itself. Such problems abound in the machine…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-30 Joshua Cutler , Dmitriy Drusvyatskiy , Zaid Harchaoui

Classical entropy regularization is poorly suited to continuous-time martingale transport, since relative entropy between diffusion laws typically forces their volatility characteristics to coincide. We introduce a specific-entropy…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-05-22 Francois Buet-Golfouse , Anaïs Després , Zhenjie Ren , Xin Zhang

We consider the optimal mass transportation problem in $\RR^d$ with measurably parameterized marginals, for general cost functions and under conditions ensuring the existence of a unique optimal transport map. We prove a joint measurability…

Probability · Mathematics 2008-09-09 Joaquin Fontbona , Helene Guerin , Sylvie Meleard

We study causal optimal transport in continuous time, with Markovian cost, between a finite-state Markov source and a diffusion target. By replacing the source with its conditional law given the observation of the target, we characterize…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Julio Backhoff , Erhan Bayraktar , Ibrahim Ekren , Antonios Zitridis

The aim of this paper is to investigate risk-averse and distributionally robust modeling of Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC) and Markov Decision Process (MDP). We discuss construction of conditional nested risk functionals, a particular…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-23 Alexander Shapiro , Yan Li

Semi-discrete optimal transport problems, which evaluate the Wasserstein distance between a discrete and a generic (possibly non-discrete) probability measure, are believed to be computationally hard. Even though such problems are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-02 Bahar Taskesen , Soroosh Shafieezadeh-Abadeh , Daniel Kuhn

Markov chains are fundamental models for stochastic dynamics, with applications in a wide range of areas such as population dynamics, queueing systems, reinforcement learning, and Monte Carlo methods. Estimating the transition matrix and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-01-26 Lasse Leskelä , Maximilien Dreveton

Markov decision process (MDP) is a decision making framework where a decision maker is interested in maximizing the expected discounted value of a stream of rewards received at future stages at various states which are visited according to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-12-19 Hoang Nam Nguyen , Abdel Lisser , Vikas Vikram Singh

The training of modern machine learning models often consists in solving high-dimensional non-convex optimisation problems that are subject to large-scale data. In this context, momentum-based stochastic optimisation algorithms have become…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-06 Kexin Jin , Jonas Latz , Chenguang Liu , Alessandro Scagliotti

Flow-based methods for sampling and generative modeling use continuous-time dynamical systems to represent a {transport map} that pushes forward a source measure to a target measure. The introduction of a time axis provides considerable…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-19 Panos Tsimpos , Zhi Ren , Jakob Zech , Youssef Marzouk

The distributionally robust Markov Decision Process (MDP) approach asks for a distributionally robust policy that achieves the maximal expected total reward under the most adversarial distribution of uncertain parameters. In this paper, we…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-10-10 Zhi Chen , Pengqian Yu , William B. Haskell

We study one-sided and $\alpha$-correct sequential hypothesis testing for data generated by an ergodic Markov chain. The null hypothesis is that the unknown transition matrix belongs to a prescribed set $P$ of stochastic matrices, and the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-20 Alhad Sethi , Kavali Sofia Sagar , Shubhada Agrawal , Debabrota Basu , P. N. Karthik

This paper addresses risk awareness of stochastic optimization problems. Nested risk measures appear naturally in this context, as they allow beneficial reformulations for algorithmic treatments. The reformulations presented extend usual…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-14 Alois Pichler , Ruben Schlotter