Related papers: Monte Carlo Algorithms for Optimal Stopping and St…
We propose a stochastic variance reduced optimization algorithm for solving sparse learning problems with cardinality constraints. Sufficient conditions are provided, under which the proposed algorithm enjoys strong linear convergence…
We construct a new Markov chain Monte Carlo method on finite states with optimal choices of acceptance-rejection ratio functions. We prove that the constructed continuous time Markov jumping process has a global in-time convergence rate in…
Many real world stochastic control problems suffer from the "curse of dimensionality". To overcome this difficulty, we develop a deep learning approach that directly solves high-dimensional stochastic control problems based on Monte-Carlo…
We consider a class of finite time horizon nonlinear stochastic optimal control problem, where the control acts additively on the dynamics and the control cost is quadratic. This framework is flexible and has found applications in many…
This work provides a novel convergence analysis for stochastic optimization in terms of stopping times, addressing the practical reality that algorithms are often terminated adaptively based on observed progress. Unlike prior approaches,…
Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…
This paper investigates methods for estimating the optimal stochastic control policy for a Markov Decision Process with unknown transition dynamics and an unknown reward function. This form of model-free reinforcement learning comprises…
We prove a moderate deviation principle for the continuous time interpolation of discrete time recursive stochastic processes. The methods of proof are somewhat different from the corresponding large deviation result, and in particular the…
We present two Monte Carlo sampling algorithms for probabilistic inference that guarantee polynomial-time convergence for a larger class of network than current sampling algorithms provide. These new methods are variants of the known…
In this paper, we consider the implementation of multi-level Monte Carlo method to a stochastic optimal control problem with log-normal coefficients and its surrogate model problem. From the perspective of two optimization problems, i.e.,…
We study computational and statistical aspects of learning Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs). In this model, the learner interacts with an MDP drawn at the beginning of each epoch from an unknown mixture of MDPs. To sidestep known…
Monte Carlo sampling techniques have broad applications in machine learning, Bayesian posterior inference, and parameter estimation. Often the target distribution takes the form of a product distribution over a dataset with a large number…
We investigate Monte Carlo based algorithms for solving stochastic control problems with probabilistic constraints. Our motivation comes from microgrid management, where the controller tries to optimally dispatch a diesel generator while…
We present and analyse a micro-macro acceleration method for the Monte Carlo simulation of stochastic differential equations with separation between the (fast) time-scale of individual trajectories and the (slow) time-scale of the…
Stochastic optimal control problems have a long tradition in applied probability, with the questions addressed being of high relevance in a multitude of fields. Even though theoretical solutions are well understood in many scenarios, their…
In this paper, we consider a class of stochastic optimal control problems with risk constraints that are expressed as bounded probabilities of failure for particular initial states. We present here a martingale approach that diffuses a risk…
In this paper we consider a method of solving optimal stopping problems in discrete and continuous time based on their dual representation. A novel and generic simulation-based optimization algorithm not involving nested simulations is…
We consider the problem of controlling a Markov decision process (MDP) with a large state space, so as to minimize average cost. Since it is intractable to compete with the optimal policy for large scale problems, we pursue the more modest…
We study problem-dependent rates, i.e., generalization errors that scale near-optimally with the variance, the effective loss, or the gradient norms evaluated at the "best hypothesis." We introduce a principled framework dubbed "uniform…
We consider the problem of computing optimal policies in average-reward Markov decision processes. This classical problem can be formulated as a linear program directly amenable to saddle-point optimization methods, albeit with a number of…