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Related papers: Optimal Policy Learning: From Theory to Practice

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Policy gradient methods have shown success in learning control policies for high-dimensional dynamical systems. Their biggest downside is the amount of exploration they require before yielding high-performing policies. In a lifelong…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-23 Jorge A. Mendez , Boyu Wang , Eric Eaton

In this paper we propose a novel gradient algorithm to learn a policy from an expert's observed behavior assuming that the expert behaves optimally with respect to some unknown reward function of a Markovian Decision Problem. The…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-06-26 Gergely Neu , Csaba Szepesvari

Static supervised learning-in which experimental data serves as a training sample for the estimation of an optimal treatment assignment policy-is a commonly assumed framework of policy learning. An arguably more realistic but challenging…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-09-04 Toru Kitagawa , Jeff Rowley

In many real-world applications, reinforcement learning (RL) agents might have to solve multiple tasks, each one typically modeled via a reward function. If reward functions are expressed linearly, and the agent has previously learned a set…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-24 Lucas N. Alegre , Ana L. C. Bazzan , Bruno C. da Silva

In many real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL), interactions with the environment are limited due to cost or feasibility. This presents a challenge to traditional RL algorithms since the max-return objective involves an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-05 Ofir Nachum , Bo Dai , Ilya Kostrikov , Yinlam Chow , Lihong Li , Dale Schuurmans

Methods for learning optimal policies use causal machine learning models to create human-interpretable rules for making choices around the allocation of different policy interventions. However, in realistic policy-making contexts,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-18 Patrick Rehill , Nicholas Biddle

Exploration and adaptation to new tasks in a transfer learning setup is a central challenge in reinforcement learning. In this work, we build on the idea of modeling a distribution over policies in a Bayesian deep reinforcement learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-11 Disha Shrivastava , Eeshan Gunesh Dhekane , Riashat Islam

Conventional reinforcement learning (RL) methods can successfully solve a wide range of sequential decision problems. However, learning policies that can generalize predictably across multiple tasks in a setting with non-Markovian reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Guillermo Infante , David Kuric , Anders Jonsson , Vicenç Gómez , Herke van Hoof

Policy learning focuses on devising strategies for agents in embodied artificial intelligence systems to perform optimal actions based on their perceived states. One of the key challenges in policy learning involves handling complex,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-07-08 Hao Huang , Shuaihang Yuan , Geeta Chandra Raju Bethala , Congcong Wen , Anthony Tzes , Yi Fang

In many real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL), deployed policies have varied impacts on different stakeholders, creating challenges in reaching consensus on how to effectively aggregate their preferences. Generalized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-17 Cheol Woo Kim , Jai Moondra , Shresth Verma , Madeleine Pollack , Lingkai Kong , Milind Tambe , Swati Gupta

This paper studies algorithmic decision-making in the presence of strategic individual behaviors, where an ML model is used to make decisions about human agents and the latter can adapt their behavior strategically to improve their future…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-22 Tian Xie , Xueru Zhang

Reinforcement learning offers the promise of automating the acquisition of complex behavioral skills. However, compared to commonly used and well-understood supervised learning methods, reinforcement learning algorithms can be brittle,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-01 Aviral Kumar , Xue Bin Peng , Sergey Levine

We focus on developing efficient and reliable policy optimization strategies for robot learning with real-world data. In recent years, policy gradient methods have emerged as a promising paradigm for training control policies in simulation.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-07 Tyler Westenbroek , Jacob Levy , David Fridovich-Keil

Many real-world decision processes are modeled by optimization problems whose defining parameters are unknown and must be inferred from observable data. The Predict-Then-Optimize framework uses machine learning models to predict unknown…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-23 James Kotary , Vincenzo Di Vito , Jacob Christopher , Pascal Van Hentenryck , Ferdinando Fioretto

The principles of statistical mechanics and information theory play an important role in learning and have inspired both theory and the design of numerous machine learning algorithms. The new aspect in this paper is a focus on integrating…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2015-05-13 Susanne Still

Practitioners often use data from a randomized controlled trial to learn a treatment assignment policy that can be deployed on a target population. A recurring concern in doing so is that, even if the randomized trial was well-executed…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-04-25 Lihua Lei , Roshni Sahoo , Stefan Wager

We study the problem of off-policy evaluation (OPE) in Reinforcement Learning (RL), where the aim is to estimate the performance of a new policy given historical data that may have been generated by a different policy, or policies. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-16 Aurélien F. Bibaut , Ivana Malenica , Nikos Vlassis , Mark J. van der Laan

The paper is about developing a solver for maximizing a real-valued function of binary variables. The solver relies on an algorithm that estimates the optimal objective-function value of instances from the underlying distribution of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-05 Nimrod Megiddo , Segev Wasserkrug , Orit Davidovich , Shimrit Shtern

Conventional reinforcement learning (RL) needs an environment to collect fresh data, which is impractical when online interactions are costly. Offline RL provides an alternative solution by directly learning from the previously collected…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-15 Han Zheng , Xufang Luo , Pengfei Wei , Xuan Song , Dongsheng Li , Jing Jiang

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) holds great promise for deriving optimal policies from observational data, but challenges related to interpretability and evaluation limit its practical use in safety-critical domains. Interpretability is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-24 Anton Matsson , Yaochen Rao , Heather J. Litman , Fredrik D. Johansson