Neural Information Processing Systems http://nips.cc/

Restless bandit problems are instances of non-stationary multi-armed bandits.

Learning to control unknown nonlinear dynamical systems is a fundamental problem in reinforcement learning and control theory. A commonly applied approach is to first explore the environment (exploration), learn an accurate model of it (system identification), and then compute an optimal controller with the minimum cost on this estimated system (policy optimization). While existing work has shown that it is possible to learn a uniformly good model of the system (Mania et al., 2020), in practice, if we aim to learn a good controller with a low cost on the actual system, certain system parameters may be significantly more critical than others, and we therefore ought to focus our exploration on learning such parameters.In this work, we consider the setting of nonlinear dynamical systems and seek to formally quantify, in such settings, (a) which parameters are most relevant to learning a good controller, and (b) how we can best explore so as to minimize uncertainty in such parameters. Inspired by recent work in linear systems (Wagenmaker et al., 2021), we show that minimizing the controller loss in nonlinear systems translates to estimating the system parameters in a particular, task-dependent metric. Motivated by this, we develop an algorithm able to efficiently explore the system to reduce uncertainty in this metric, and prove a lower bound showing that our approach learns a controller at a near-instance-optimal rate. Our algorithm relies on a general reduction from policy optimization to optimal experiment design in arbitrary systems, and may be of independent interest. We conclude with experiments demonstrating the effectiveness of our method in realistic nonlinear robotic systems.

Effective performance prediction and timely anoma ly detection are paramount to ensuring the long - te rm efficiency, reliability, and economic viability of these systems. Traditional monitoring methods, often based on simple thresho lds or statistical rules, frequently fail to account for the complex interplay of environmental and operational variables that affect PV performance. These methods may lead to high rates of false positives or, more critically, miss subtle but significant a nomalies that can indicate underlying system faults. To overcome these limitations, advanced data - drive n approaches are essential. Machine learning and deep learning models have shown promise in this field, offering the ability to learn complex, non - linear relationships from vast datasets.

For example, if a news site generates articles that are liberal (resp., conservative), then it is most likely to attract additional users who are liberal (resp., conservative)

This letter studies the problem of online multi-step-ahead prediction for unknown linear stochastic systems. Using conditional distribution theory, we derive an optimal parameterization of the prediction policy as a linear function of future inputs, past inputs, and past outputs. Based on this characterization, we propose an online least-squares algorithm to learn the policy and analyze its regret relative to the optimal model-based predictor. We show that the online algorithm achieves logarithmic regret with respect to the optimal Kalman filter in the multi-step setting. Furthermore, with new proof techniques, we establish an almost-sure regret bound that does not rely on fixed failure probabilities for sufficiently large horizons $N$. Finally, our analysis also reveals that, while the regret remains logarithmic in $N$, its constant factor grows polynomially with the prediction horizon $H$, with the polynomial order set by the largest Jordan block of eigenvalue 1 in the system matrix.

Learning governing equations from data is central to understanding the behavior of physical systems across diverse scientific disciplines, including physics, biology, and engineering. The Sindy algorithm has proven effective in leveraging sparsity to identify concise models of nonlinear dynamical systems. In this paper, we extend sparsity-driven approaches to real-time learning by integrating a cornerstone algorithm from control theory -- the Kalman filter (KF). The resulting Sindy Kalman Filter (SKF) unifies both frameworks by treating unknown system parameters as state variables, enabling real-time inference of complex, time-varying nonlinear models unattainable by either method alone. Furthermore, SKF enhances KF parameter identification strategies, particularly via look-ahead error, significantly simplifying the estimation of sparsity levels, variance parameters, and switching instants. We validate SKF on a chaotic Lorenz system with drifting or switching parameters and demonstrate its effectiveness in the real-time identification of a sparse nonlinear aircraft model built from real flight data.

We consider the problem of estimating states ( e.g., position and velocity) and physical parameters ( e.g., friction, elasticity) from a sequence of observations