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This work proposes an efficient batch algorithm for feature selection in reinforcement learning (RL) with theoretical convergence guarantees. To mitigate the estimation bias inherent in conventional regularization schemes, the first…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-22 Kyohei Suzuki , Konstantinos Slavakis

Constrained Reinforcement Learning (CRL) addresses sequential decision-making problems where agents are required to achieve goals by maximizing the expected return while meeting domain-specific constraints. In this setting, policy-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-09 Alessandro Montenegro , Leonardo Cesani , Marco Mussi , Matteo Papini , Alberto Maria Metelli

Entropy regularized algorithms such as Soft Q-learning and Soft Actor-Critic, recently showed state-of-the-art performance on a number of challenging reinforcement learning (RL) tasks. The regularized formulation modifies the standard RL…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-10-15 Elena Smirnova , Elvis Dohmatob

Model-based offline reinforcement learning methods (RL) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in many decision-making problems thanks to their sample efficiency and generalizability. Despite these advancements, existing model-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Mao Hong , Zhiyue Zhang , Yue Wu , Yanxun Xu

Wasserstein policy gradient (WPG) is a policy optimization method for reinforcement learning (RL) that exploits the optimal-transport geometry of action distributions. For the entropy-regularized RL objective, WPG evolves each…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Zhaoyu Zhu , Rui Gao , Shuang Li

Reinforcement learning (RL) is currently one of the most prominent methods for optimizing dynamical systems, with breakthrough results across various fields. The framework is based on the concept of a Markov decision process (MDP), leading…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-17 Rene Carmona , Mathieu Lauriere

We study discrete-time mirror descent applied to the unregularized empirical risk in matrix sensing. In both the general case of rectangular matrices and the particular case of positive semidefinite matrices, a simple potential-based…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-10-28 Fan Wu , Patrick Rebeschini

Mirror descent (MD) is a powerful first-order optimization technique that subsumes several optimization algorithms including gradient descent (GD). In this work, we develop a semi-definite programming (SDP) framework to analyze the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-19 Youbang Sun , Mahyar Fazlyab , Shahin Shahrampour

Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has emerged as a promising approach to improve the reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs). Among RLVR algorithms, Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) and its variants…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Zhaokang Liao , Yingguo Gao , Yi Yang , Yongheng Hu , Jingting Ding

We study three families of online convex optimization algorithms: follow-the-proximally-regularized-leader (FTRL-Proximal), regularized dual averaging (RDA), and composite-objective mirror descent. We first prove equivalence theorems that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-09-21 H. Brendan McMahan

We study the problem of learning optimal policies in finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) using low-rank reinforcement learning (RL) methods. In finite-horizon MDPs, the policies, and therefore the value functions (VFs) are not…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Sergio Rozada , Jose Luis Orejuela , Antonio G. Marques

Policy gradient (PG) methods have played an essential role in the empirical successes of reinforcement learning. In order to handle large state-action spaces, PG methods are typically used with function approximation. In this setting, the…

Lexicographic multi-objective problems, which consist of multiple conflicting subtasks with explicit priorities, are common in real-world applications. Despite the advantages of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in single tasks, extending…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Ruiyu Qiu , Rui Wang , Guanghui Yang , Xiang Li , Zhijiang Shao

Generalization is a central challenge for the deployment of reinforcement learning (RL) systems in the real world. In this paper, we show that the sequential structure of the RL problem necessitates new approaches to generalization beyond…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-14 Dibya Ghosh , Jad Rahme , Aviral Kumar , Amy Zhang , Ryan P. Adams , Sergey Levine

In recent years, various powerful policy gradient algorithms have been proposed in deep reinforcement learning. While all these algorithms build on the Policy Gradient Theorem, the specific design choices differ significantly across…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-04 Matthias Lehmann

We propose policy gradient algorithms which learn risk-sensitive policies in a reinforcement learning (RL) framework. Our proposed algorithms maximize the distortion risk measure (DRM) of the cumulative reward in an episodic Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-06 Nithia Vijayan , Prashanth L. A

We propose policy gradient algorithms for solving a risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) problem in on-policy as well as off-policy settings. We consider episodic Markov decision processes, and model the risk using the broad class of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Nithia Vijayan , Prashanth L. A

We consider the challenge of policy simplification and verification in the context of policies learned through reinforcement learning (RL) in continuous environments. In well-behaved settings, RL algorithms have convergence guarantees in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-15 Florent Delgrange , Ann Nowé , Guillermo A. Pérez

In this paper, we investigate the power of {\it regularization}, a common technique in reinforcement learning and optimization, in solving extensive-form games (EFGs). We propose a series of new algorithms based on regularizing the payoff…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-07-10 Mingyang Liu , Asuman Ozdaglar , Tiancheng Yu , Kaiqing Zhang

Recent advances in constrained reinforcement learning (RL) have endowed reinforcement learning with certain safety guarantees. However, deploying existing constrained RL algorithms in continuous control tasks with general hard constraints…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-22 Shutong Ding , Jingya Wang , Yali Du , Ye Shi