REINFORCEMENT LEARNING AND STOCHASTIC OPTIMIZATION Clearing the jungle of stochastic optimization Sequential decision problems, which consist of “decision, information, decision, information,” are ubiquitous, spanning virtually every human activity ranging from business applications, health (personal and public health, and medical decision making), energy, the sciences, all fields of engineering, finance, and e-commerce. The diversity of applications attracted the attention of at least 15 distinct fields of research, using eight distinct notational systems which produced a vast array of analytical tools. A byproduct is that powerful tools developed in one community may be unknown to other communities. Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization offers a single canonical framework that can model any sequential decision problem using five core components: state variables, decision variables, exogenous information variables, transition function, and objective function. This book highlights twelve types of uncertainty that might enter any model and pulls together the diverse set of methods for making decisions, known as policies, into four fundamental classes that span every method suggested in the academic literature or used in practice. Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization is the first book to provide a balanced treatment of the different methods for modeling and solving sequential decision problems, following the style used by most books on machine learning, optimization, and simulation. The presentation is designed for readers with a course in probability and statistics, and an interest in modeling and applications. Linear programming is occasionally used for specific problem classes. The book is designed for readers who are new to the field, as well as those with some background in optimization under uncertainty. Throughout this book, readers will find references to over 100 different applications, spanning pure learning problems, dynamic resource allocation problems, general state-dependent problems, and hybrid learning/resource allocation problems such as those that arose in the COVID pandemic. There are 370 exercises, organized into seven groups, ranging from review questions, modeling, computation, problem solving, theory, programming exercises and a "diary problem" that a reader chooses at the beginning of the book, and which is used as a basis for questions throughout the rest of the book.

Advancements in the technology and availability of data sources have led to the `Big Data' era. Working with large data offers the potential to uncover more fine-grained patterns and take timely and accurate decisions, but it also creates a lot of challenges such as slow training and scalability of machine learning models. One of the major challenges in machine learning is to develop efficient and scalable learning algorithms, i.e., optimization techniques to solve large scale learning problems. Stochastic Optimization for Large-scale Machine Learning identifies different areas of improvement and recent research directions to tackle the challenge. Developed optimisation techniques are also explored to improve machine learning algorithms based on data access and on first and second order optimisation methods. Key Features: Bridges machine learning and Optimisation. Bridges theory and practice in machine learning. Identifies key research areas and recent research directions to solve large-scale machine learning problems. Develops optimisation techniques to improve machine learning algorithms for big data problems. The book will be a valuable reference to practitioners and researchers as well as students in the field of machine learning.

Advancements in the technology and availability of data sources have led to the `Big Data' era. Working with large data offers the potential to uncover more fine-grained patterns and take timely and accurate decisions, but it also creates a lot of challenges such as slow training and scalability of machine learning models. One of the major challenges in machine learning is to develop efficient and scalable learning algorithms, i.e., optimization techniques to solve large scale learning problems. Stochastic Optimization for Large-scale Machine Learning identifies different areas of improvement and recent research directions to tackle the challenge. Developed optimisation techniques are also explored to improve machine learning algorithms based on data access and on first and second order optimisation methods. Key Features: Bridges machine learning and Optimisation. Bridges theory and practice in machine learning. Identifies key research areas and recent research directions to solve large-scale machine learning problems. Develops optimisation techniques to improve machine learning algorithms for big data problems. The book will be a valuable reference to practitioners and researchers as well as students in the field of machine learning.

This book covers not only foundational materials but also the most recent progresses made during the past few years on the area of machine learning algorithms. In spite of the intensive research and development in this area, there does not exist a systematic treatment to introduce the fundamental concepts and recent progresses on machine learning algorithms, especially on those based on stochastic optimization methods, randomized algorithms, nonconvex optimization, distributed and online learning, and projection free methods. This book will benefit the broad audience in the area of machine learning, artificial intelligence and mathematical programming community by presenting these recent developments in a tutorial style, starting from the basic building blocks to the most carefully designed and complicated algorithms for machine learning.

Performance optimization is vital in the design and operation of modern engineering systems, including communications, manufacturing, robotics, and logistics. Most engineering systems are too complicated to model, or the system parameters cannot be easily identified, so learning techniques have to be applied. This book provides a unified framework based on a sensitivity point of view. It also introduces new approaches and proposes new research topics within this sensitivity-based framework. This new perspective on a popular topic is presented by a well respected expert in the field.

This monograph introduces various value-based approaches for solving the policy evaluation problem in the online reinforcement learning (RL) scenario, which aims to learn the value function associated with a specific policy under a single Markov decision process (MDP). Approaches vary depending on whether they are implemented in an on-policy or off-policy manner. In on-policy settings, where the evaluation of the policy is conducted using data generated from the same policy that is being assessed, classical techniques such as TD(0), TD(λ), and their extensions with function approximation or variance reduction are employed in this setting. For off-policy evaluation, where samples are collected under a different behavior policy, this monograph introduces gradient-based two-timescale algorithms like GTD2, TDC, and variance-reduced TDC. These algorithms are designed to minimize the mean-squared projected Bellman error (MSPBE) as the objective function. This monograph also discusses their finite-sample convergence upper bounds and sample complexity.