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This paper is concerned with constructing a confidence interval for a target policy's value offline based on a pre-collected observational data in infinite horizon settings. Most of the existing works assume no unmeasured variables exist…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-11-07 Chengchun Shi , Jin Zhu , Ye Shen , Shikai Luo , Hongtu Zhu , Rui Song

We develop a novel EDMD-type algorithm that captures the spectrum of the Koopman operator defined on a reproducing kernel Hilbert space of analytic functions. This method, which we call analytic EDMD, relies on an orthogonal projection on…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2026-01-16 Alexandre Mauroy , Igor Mezic

Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (EDMD) is a popular data-driven method to approximate the Koopman operator for deterministic and stochastic (control) systems. This operator is linear and encompasses full information on the (expected…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2023-12-19 Friedrich Philipp , Manuel Schaller , Karl Worthmann , Sebastian Peitz , Feliks Nüske

The focus of this paper is on stochastic variational inequalities (VI) under Markovian noise. A prominent application of our algorithmic developments is the stochastic policy evaluation problem in reinforcement learning. Prior…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-08-17 Georgios Kotsalis , Guanghui Lan , Tianjiao Li

Non-Markovian dynamics are commonly found in real-world environments due to long-range dependencies, partial observability, and memory effects. The Bellman equation that is the central pillar of Reinforcement learning (RL) becomes only…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-09 Zuyuan Zhang , Sizhe Tang , Tian Lan

In this paper, we consider the policy evaluation problem in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) and derive exact closed-form formulas for the finite-time mean-squared estimation errors of decentralized temporal difference (TD)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-22 Xingang Guo , Bin Hu

We study finite-horizon continuous-time policy evaluation from discrete closed-loop trajectories under time-inhomogeneous dynamics. The target value surface solves a backward parabolic equation, but the Bellman baseline obtained from…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-11 Yaowei Zheng , Richong Zhang , Shenxi Wu , Shirui Bian , Haosong Zhang , Li Zeng , Xingjian Ma , Yichi Zhang

Off-policy learning ability is an important feature of reinforcement learning (RL) for practical applications. However, even one of the most elementary RL algorithms, temporal-difference (TD) learning, is known to suffer form divergence…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-21 Han-Dong Lim , Donghwan Lee

Although resource-limited networked autonomous systems must be able to efficiently and effectively accomplish tasks, better conservation of resources often results in worse task performance. We specifically address the problem of finding…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-10-05 Anne Theurkauf , Nisar Ahmed , Morteza Lahijanian

Temporal difference (TD) learning is a cornerstone reinforcement learning (RL) method for policy evaluation, where the goal is to estimate the value function of a Markov decision process under a fixed policy. While a substantial body of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Donghwan Lee , Do Wan Kim

Relative temporal-difference (TD) learning was introduced to mitigate the slow convergence of TD methods when the discount factor approaches one by subtracting a baseline from the temporal-difference update. While this idea has been studied…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-08 Masoud S. Sakha , Rushikesh Kamalapurkar , Sean Meyn

In this paper, we study the finite-sample statistical rates of distributional temporal difference (TD) learning with linear function approximation. The purpose of distributional TD learning is to estimate the return distribution of a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-18 Kaicheng Jin , Yang Peng , Jiansheng Yang , Zhihua Zhang

Temporal difference (TD) learning is a fundamental algorithm for estimating value functions in reinforcement learning. Recent finite-time analyses of TD with linear function approximation quantify its theoretical convergence rate. However,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Yunxiang Li , Mark Schmidt , Reza Babanezhad , Sharan Vaswani

We consider the core reinforcement-learning problem of on-policy value function approximation from a batch of trajectory data, and focus on various issues of Temporal Difference (TD) learning and Monte Carlo (MC) policy evaluation. The two…

We study methods based on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces for estimating the value function of an infinite-horizon discounted Markov reward process (MRP). We study a regularized form of the kernel least-squares temporal difference (LSTD)…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-09-27 Yaqi Duan , Mengdi Wang , Martin J. Wainwright

The problem of solving Markov decision processes under function approximation remains a fundamental challenge, even under linear function approximation settings. A key difficulty arises from a geometric mismatch: while the Bellman…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-09 Hyukjun Yang , Han-Dong Lim , Donghwan Lee

This paper investigates the problem of online prediction learning, where learning proceeds continuously as the agent interacts with an environment. The predictions made by the agent are contingent on a particular way of behaving,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-11-08 Sina Ghiassian , Andrew Patterson , Martha White , Richard S. Sutton , Adam White

An algorithm is proposed for policy evaluation in Markov Decision Processes which gives good empirical results with respect to convergence rates. The algorithm tracks the Projected Bellman Error and is implemented as a true gradient based…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-01-21 Debangshu Banerjee , Kavita Wagh

The policy gradient theorem (Sutton et al., 2000) prescribes the usage of a cumulative discounted state distribution under the target policy to approximate the gradient. Most algorithms based on this theorem, in practice, break this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-08 Samuele Tosatto , Andrew Patterson , Martha White , A. Rupam Mahmood

This paper is concerned with the problem of policy evaluation with linear function approximation in discounted infinite horizon Markov decision processes. We investigate the sample complexities required to guarantee a predefined estimation…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-05-03 Gen Li , Weichen Wu , Yuejie Chi , Cong Ma , Alessandro Rinaldo , Yuting Wei