Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

INRIA Associate Teams: SEQ-RL

• Title: Decision-making under Uncertainty with Applications to Reinforcement Learning, Control, and Games

• INRIA principal investigator: Rémi Munos

• International Partner:

  • Institution: University of Alberta (Canada)

  • Laboratory: Department of Computer Science

  • Principal investigator: Csaba Szepesvári

• Duration: January 2010 - January 2013

• Website: http://sites.google.com/site/associateteamualberta/home

• This associate team aims at bridging researchers from the SequeL team-project at INRIA Lille with the Department of Computing Science of the University of Alberta in Canada. Our common interest lies in machine learning, especially reinforcement learning, bandit algorithms and statistical learning with applications to control and computer games. The department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta is internationally renown as a leading research institute on these topics. The research work spans from theory to applications. Grounded on an already existing scientific collaboration, this associate team will make it easier to collaborate further between the two institutes, and thus strengthen this relationship. We foresee that the associate team will boost our collaboration, create new opportunities for financial support, and open-up a long-term fruitful collaboration between the two institutes. The collaboration will be through organizing workshops and exchanging researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and Ph.D. students between the two institutes.

INRIA International Partners

• University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

  • Prof. Csaba Szepesvari Collaborator

    We have been working on the topic of regularized reinforcement learning over the last four years. This year, we have one journal paper submitted [57] and one that will be submitted soon [8] on this topic. We are also coordinators of an INRIA associate team program with the university of Alberta.

  • Amir massoud Farahmand Collaborator

    We have been working on the topic of regularized reinforcement learning over the last five years. This year, we have one journal paper submitted [57] and one that will be submitted soon [8] on this topic.

• Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

  • Prof. Shie Mannor Collaborator

    We have been collaborating on the topic of Bayesian reinforcement learning for the last six years, on the topic of regularized reinforcement learning for the last four years, and on the topic of reinforcement learning in high dimensions in the last two year. On the first topic, we have a journal paper (survey) in preparation [58] this year. On the second topic, we have one journal paper under review [57] and one in preparation [8] this year. Finally, on the third topic, we were Co-PI's of a PASCAL2 pump-priming program that ended in June 2011.

• University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

  • Prof. Pascal Poupart Collaborator

    We have been collaborating on the topic of Bayesian reinforcement learning in the last five years. This year, we have a journal paper in preparation [58] on this topic.

• Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

  • Prof. Marcello Restelli Collaborator

    We have been working on the topic of transfer in reinforcement learning over the last year. In particular, we have one conference paper [32] and a journal paper in preparation.

  • Prof. Nicola Gatti Collaborator

    We have started a collaboration on the topic of bandit mechanisms for sponsored-search auction. This year, we have submitted a paper to AAMAS [26] and we have collaborated on a proposal for a Marie Curie ITN and a Fet-Open Young Researcher proposal.

• University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

  • Prof. Enrico Gerding Collaborator

    We have been working on the topic of learning and mechanism design over the last year. In particular, we have collaborated on a proposal for a Marie Curie ITN and a Fet-Open Young Researcher proposal.

Visits of International Scientists

International Scientists

• Brahim Chaib-Draa, from Université Laval, Québec.

  His visit has been funded by Université de Lille 3 where he also taught.

• Mohammad G. Azar, Ph.D. student at University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

  Period: April 2011 - July 2011

  He worked with Rémi Munos and Mohammad Ghavamzadeh on performance analysis of reinforcement learning algorithms. The outcome of this collaboration has been a conference paper [16] and a technical report [48] so far.

Internship

• Matthew Hoffman, Ph.D. student at University of British Columbia, Canada.

  Period: October 2010 - April 2011.

  He worked with Alessandro Lazaric, Rémi Munos, and Mohammad Ghavamzadeh on our PASCAL2 Pump-Priming project on sparse reinforcement learning in high dimensions. The outcome of this collaboration has been a conference paper [61] so far.