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To achieve sample efficiency in reinforcement learning (RL), it necessitates efficiently exploring the underlying environment. Under the offline setting, addressing the exploration challenge lies in collecting an offline dataset with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-15 Shuang Qiu , Jieping Ye , Zhaoran Wang , Zhuoran Yang

Strong worst-case performance bounds for episodic reinforcement learning exist but fortunately in practice RL algorithms perform much better than such bounds would predict. Algorithms and theory that provide strong problem-dependent bounds…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Andrea Zanette , Emma Brunskill

We provide improved gap-dependent regret bounds for reinforcement learning in finite episodic Markov decision processes. Compared to prior work, our bounds depend on alternative definitions of gaps. These definitions are based on the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-27 Christoph Dann , Teodor V. Marinov , Mehryar Mohri , Julian Zimmert

Algorithms developed under stationary Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) often face challenges in non-stationary environments, and infinite-horizon formulations may not directly apply to finite-horizon tasks. To address these limitations, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Zhizuo Chen , Theodore T. Allen

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms are predominantly developed for stationary environments, and the limited literature that considers nonstationary environments often involves specific assumptions about changes that can occur in transition…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-25 Ranga Shaarad Ayyagari , Revanth Raj Eega , Ambedkar Dukkipati

Many practical decision-making problems involve tasks whose success depends on the entire system history, rather than on achieving a state with desired properties. Markovian Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches are not suitable for such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-17 Alessandro Trapasso , Luca Iocchi , Fabio Patrizi

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the problem of finding a reward function that generates a given optimal policy for a given Markov Decision Process. This paper looks at an algorithmic-independent geometric analysis of the IRL problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-19 Abi Komanduru , Jean Honorio

Reward models (RMs) play a crucial role in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), aligning model behavior with human preferences. However, existing benchmarks for reward models show a weak correlation with the performance of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Sunghwan Kim , Dongjin Kang , Taeyoon Kwon , Hyungjoo Chae , Dongha Lee , Jinyoung Yeo

We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-21 Kaito Ariu , Po-An Wang , Alexandre Proutiere , Kenshi Abe

We address the problem of policy evaluation in discounted Markov decision processes, and provide instance-dependent guarantees on the $\ell_\infty$-error under a generative model. We establish both asymptotic and non-asymptotic versions of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-03-17 Koulik Khamaru , Ashwin Pananjady , Feng Ruan , Martin J. Wainwright , Michael I. Jordan

We study reinforcement learning (RL) in the setting of continuous time and space, for an infinite horizon with a discounted objective and the underlying dynamics driven by a stochastic differential equation. Built upon recent advances in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-19 Hanyang Zhao , Wenpin Tang , David D. Yao

Policy gradient methods are widely used in reinforcement learning. Yet, the nonconvexity of policy optimization poses significant challenges in understanding the global convergence of policy gradient methods. For a class of finite-horizon…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Xin Chen , Yifan Hu , Minda Zhao

We consider policy evaluation in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision problems (MDPs) with infinite spaces. We reformulate this task a compositional stochastic program with a function-valued decision variable that belongs to a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-19 Alec Koppel , Garrett Warnell , Ethan Stump , Peter Stone , Alejandro Ribeiro

We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) framework for multi-objective decision-making, where the agent seeks to optimize a vector of rewards rather than a single scalar value. The objective is to ensure that the time-averaged reward vector…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-18 Rahul Misra , Manuela L. Bujorianu , Rafał Wisniewski

In this paper, we consider risk-sensitive Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with Borel state and action spaces and unbounded cost under both finite and infinite planning horizons. Our optimality criterion is based on the recursive…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-16 Nicole Bäuerle , Alexander Glauner

We study data-driven learning of robust stochastic control for infinite-horizon systems with potentially continuous state and action spaces. In many managerial settings--supply chains, finance, manufacturing, services, and dynamic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-18 Shengbo Wang , Jason Meng , Nian Si , Jose Blanchet , Zhengyuan Zhou

We study discrete-time discounted constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) on Borel spaces with unbounded reward functions. In our approach the transition probability functions are weakly or set-wise continuous. The reward functions…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-03-29 Eugene A. Feinberg , Anna Jaśkiewicz , Andrzej S. Nowak

Learning a near optimal policy in a partially observable system remains an elusive challenge in contemporary reinforcement learning. In this work, we consider episodic reinforcement learning in a reward-mixing Markov decision process (MDP).…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-01 Jeongyeol Kwon , Yonathan Efroni , Constantine Caramanis , Shie Mannor

Online reinforcement learning (RL) has been widely applied in information processing scenarios, which usually exhibit much uncertainty due to the intrinsic randomness of channels and service demands. In this paper, we consider an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-17 Rongpeng Li

In reinforcement learning (RL), an agent learns to perform a task by interacting with an environment and receiving feedback (a numerical reward) for its actions. However, the assumption that rewards are always observable is often not…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-15 Simone Parisi , Montaser Mohammedalamen , Alireza Kazemipour , Matthew E. Taylor , Michael Bowling