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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

We study generalized linear prediction under a streaming setting, where each iteration uses only one fresh data point for a gradient-level update. While momentum is well-established in deterministic optimization, a fundamental open question…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Qian Chen , Shihong Ding , Cong Fang

Linear TD($\lambda$) is one of the most fundamental reinforcement learning algorithms for policy evaluation. Previously, convergence rates are typically established under the assumption of linearly independent features, which does not hold…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Zixuan Xie , Xinyu Liu , Rohan Chandra , Shangtong Zhang

In this paper, we consider a general stochastic optimization problem which is often at the core of supervised learning, such as deep learning and linear classification. We consider a standard stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method with a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-12-27 Lam M. Nguyen , Nam H. Nguyen , Dzung T. Phan , Jayant R. Kalagnanam , Katya Scheinberg

The analysis of Temporal Difference (TD) learning in the average-reward setting faces notable theoretical difficulties because the Bellman operator is not contractive with respect to any norm. This complicates standard analyses of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-05 Haoxing Tian , Zaiwei Chen , Ioannis Ch. Paschalidis , Alex Olshevsky

In this paper, we introduce proximal gradient temporal difference learning, which provides a principled way of designing and analyzing true stochastic gradient temporal difference learning algorithms. We show how gradient TD (GTD)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-09 Bo Liu , Ian Gemp , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Ji Liu , Sridhar Mahadevan , Marek Petrik

Dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) is a widely used data-driven algorithm for predicting the future states of dynamical systems. However, its standard formulation often struggles with poor long-term predictive accuracy. To address this…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-10-23 Qiuqi Li , Chang Liu , Yifei Yang

In this paper we study the problem of convergence and generalization error bound of stochastic momentum for deep learning from the perspective of regularization. To do so, we first interpret momentum as solving an $\ell_2$-regularized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-04 Ziming Zhang , Wenju Xu , Alan Sullivan

We consider linear prediction with a convex Lipschitz loss, or more generally, stochastic convex optimization problems of generalized linear form, i.e.~where each instantaneous loss is a scalar convex function of a linear function. We show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-01 Idan Amir , Roi Livni , Nathan Srebro

Stochastic approximation (SA) is an iterative algorithm for finding the fixed point of an operator using noisy samples and widely used in optimization and Reinforcement Learning (RL). The noise in RL exhibits a Markovian structure, and in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Shaan Ul Haque , Sajad Khodadadian , Siva Theja Maguluri

In this paper, we provide a unified analysis of temporal difference learning algorithms with linear function approximators by exploiting their connections to Markov jump linear systems (MJLS). We tailor the MJLS theory developed in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-06 Bin Hu , Usman Ahmed Syed

We study the generalization properties of the popular stochastic optimization method known as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for optimizing general non-convex loss functions. Our main contribution is providing upper bounds on the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-17 Gergely Neu , Gintare Karolina Dziugaite , Mahdi Haghifam , Daniel M. Roy

Motivated by engineering applications such as resource allocation in networks and inventory systems, we consider average-reward Reinforcement Learning with unbounded state space and reward function. Recent works studied this problem in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-10 Shaan Ul Haque , Siva Theja Maguluri

Dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) is a widely used data-driven algorithm for predicting the future states of dynamical systems. However, its standard formulation often struggles with poor long-term predictive accuracy. To address this…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Qiuqi Li , Chang Liu , Yifei Yang

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

Motivated by the widespread use of temporal-difference (TD-) and Q-learning algorithms in reinforcement learning, this paper studies a class of biased stochastic approximation (SA) procedures under a mild "ergodic-like" assumption on the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-02 Gang Wang , Bingcong Li , Georgios B. Giannakis

Under mild assumptions stochastic gradient methods asymptotically achieve an optimal rate of convergence if the arithmetic mean of all iterates is returned as an approximate optimal solution. However, in the absence of stochastic noise, the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-06 Melinda Hagedorn , Florian Jarre

Temporal difference (TD) methods constitute a class of methods for learning predictions in multi-step prediction problems, parameterized by a recency factor lambda. Currently the most important application of these methods is to temporal…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2008-02-03 P. Cichosz

We study the finite-time convergence of TD learning with linear function approximation under Markovian sampling. Existing proofs for this setting either assume a projection step in the algorithm to simplify the analysis, or require a fairly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-27 Aritra Mitra

We provide non-asymptotic bounds for the well-known temporal difference learning algorithm TD(0) with linear function approximators. These include high-probability bounds as well as bounds in expectation. Our analysis suggests that a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-09-02 Nathaniel Korda , L. A. Prashanth