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We propose a method of training quantization thresholds (TQT) for uniform symmetric quantizers using standard backpropagation and gradient descent. Contrary to prior work, we show that a careful analysis of the straight-through estimator…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2020-03-02 Sambhav R. Jain , Albert Gural , Michael Wu , Chris H. Dick

The paper introduces the first formulation of convex Q-learning for Markov decision processes with function approximation. The algorithms and theory rest on a relaxation of a dual of Manne's celebrated linear programming characterization of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-12 Fan Lu , Sean Meyn

The use of target networks in deep reinforcement learning is a widely popular solution to mitigate the brittleness of semi-gradient approaches and stabilize learning. However, target networks notoriously require additional memory and delay…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Théo Vincent , Yogesh Tripathi , Tim Faust , Abdullah Akgül , Yaniv Oren , Melih Kandemir , Jan Peters , Carlo D'Eramo

Despite the great empirical success of deep reinforcement learning, its theoretical foundation is less well understood. In this work, we make the first attempt to theoretically understand the deep Q-network (DQN) algorithm (Mnih et al.,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-25 Jianqing Fan , Zhaoran Wang , Yuchen Xie , Zhuoran Yang

We establish a continuous-time framework for analyzing Deep Q-Networks (DQNs) via stochastic control and Forward-Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (FBSDEs). Considering a continuous-time Markov Decision Process (MDP) driven by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-06 Qian Qi

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has achieved impressive success in many applications. A key component of many DRL models is a neural network representing a Q function, to estimate the expected cumulative reward following a state-action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-07-17 Guiliang Liu , Oliver Schulte , Wang Zhu , Qingcan Li

The Q-learning algorithm is known to be affected by the maximization bias, i.e. the systematic overestimation of action values, an important issue that has recently received renewed attention. Double Q-learning has been proposed as an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-03 Rong Zhu , Mattia Rigotti

Optimized control of quantum networks is essential for enabling distributed quantum applications with strict performance requirements. In near-term architectures with constrained hardware, effective control may determine the feasibility of…

We consider a reinforcement learning setting in which the deployment environment is different from the training environment. Applying a robust Markov decision processes formulation, we extend the distributionally robust $Q$-learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-02 Shengbo Wang , Nian Si , Jose Blanchet , Zhengyuan Zhou

We analyse quantile temporal-difference learning (QTD), a distributional reinforcement learning algorithm that has proven to be a key component in several successful large-scale applications of reinforcement learning. Despite these…

Understanding how to efficiently learn while adhering to safety constraints is essential for using online reinforcement learning in practical applications. However, proving rigorous regret bounds for safety-constrained reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-29 Benjamin Schiffer , Lucas Janson

Neural networks allow Q-learning reinforcement learning agents such as deep Q-networks (DQN) to approximate complex mappings from state spaces to value functions. However, this also brings drawbacks when compared to other function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-06-21 Jack Shannon , Marek Grzes

In recent years deep reinforcement learning (RL) systems have attained superhuman performance in a number of challenging task domains. However, a major limitation of such applications is their demand for massive amounts of training data. A…

We consider the offline reinforcement learning problem, where the aim is to learn a decision making policy from logged data. Offline RL -- particularly when coupled with (value) function approximation to allow for generalization in large or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-31 Dylan J. Foster , Akshay Krishnamurthy , David Simchi-Levi , Yunzong Xu

Q-learning, which seeks to learn the optimal Q-function of a Markov decision process (MDP) in a model-free fashion, lies at the heart of reinforcement learning. When it comes to the synchronous setting (such that independent samples for all…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-03-18 Gen Li , Changxiao Cai , Yuxin Chen , Yuting Wei , Yuejie Chi

While deep learning is successful in a number of applications, it is not yet well understood theoretically. A satisfactory theoretical characterization of deep learning however, is beginning to emerge. It covers the following questions: 1)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-27 Tomaso Poggio , Andrzej Banburski , Qianli Liao

Counterexample-guided repair aims at creating neural networks with mathematical safety guarantees, facilitating the application of neural networks in safety-critical domains. However, whether counterexample-guided repair is guaranteed to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-06 David Boetius , Stefan Leue , Tobias Sutter

We focus on the task of learning the value function in the reinforcement learning (RL) setting. This task is often solved by updating a pair of online and target networks while ensuring that the parameters of these two networks are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-24 Kavosh Asadi , Yao Liu , Shoham Sabach , Ming Yin , Rasool Fakoor

A primary requirement for any reinforcement learning method is that it should produce policies that improve upon the initial guess. In this work, we show that the widely used Deep Q-Network (DQN) fails to satisfy this minimal criterion --…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-18 Aditya Gopalan , Gugan Thoppe

$Q$-learning is the most fundamental model-free reinforcement learning algorithm. Deployment of $Q$-learning requires approximation of the state-action value function (also known as the $Q$-function). In this work, we provide online random…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-04-11 Joosung Min , Lloyd T. Elliott