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Reinforcement learning (RL) has proven effective in strengthening the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs). A widely adopted method, Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), has shown strong empirical results in training…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-11 Peter Chen , Xiaopeng Li , Ziniu Li , Xi Chen , Tianyi Lin

We provide a framework for accelerating reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms by heuristics constructed from domain knowledge or offline data. Tabula rasa RL algorithms require environment interactions or computation that scales with the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-23 Ching-An Cheng , Andrey Kolobov , Adith Swaminathan

Ensuring reliability in modern software systems requires rigorous pre-production testing across highly heterogeneous and evolving environments. Because exhaustive evaluation is infeasible, practitioners must decide how to allocate limited…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-10-08 Yu Zhu

In recent years, significant progress has been made in multi-objective reinforcement learning (RL) research, which aims to balance multiple objectives by incorporating preferences for each objective. In most existing studies, specific…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-17 Qian Lin , Zongkai Liu , Danying Mo , Chao Yu

In this paper, we propose a max-min entropy framework for reinforcement learning (RL) to overcome the limitation of the soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm implementing the maximum entropy RL in model-free sample-based learning. Whereas the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-21 Seungyul Han , Youngchul Sung

Model-based offline reinforcement learning (RL) aims to find highly rewarding policy, by leveraging a previously collected static dataset and a dynamics model. While the dynamics model learned through reuse of the static dataset, its…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-01 Kaiyang Guo , Yunfeng Shao , Yanhui Geng

Standard reinforcement learning (RL) aims to find an optimal policy that identifies the best action for each state. However, in healthcare settings, many actions may be near-equivalent with respect to the reward (e.g., survival). We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-27 Shengpu Tang , Aditya Modi , Michael W. Sjoding , Jenna Wiens

We investigate the theoretical aspects of offline reinforcement learning (RL) under general function approximation. While prior works (e.g., Xie et al., 2021) have established the theoretical foundations of learning a good policy from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Xiang Li , Yuheng Zhang , Nan Jiang

Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is the predominant algorithm for training text generation models. This paradigm relies on direct supervision examples, which is not applicable to many emerging applications, such as generating adversarial…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2022-10-25 Han Guo , Bowen Tan , Zhengzhong Liu , Eric P. Xing , Zhiting Hu

Reinforcement Learning (RL) in partially observable environments poses significant challenges due to the complexity of learning under uncertainty. While additional information, such as that available in simulations, can enhance training,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-16 Yueheng Li , Guangming Xie , Zongqing Lu

We consider the problem of sparse coding, where each sample consists of a sparse linear combination of a set of dictionary atoms, and the task is to learn both the dictionary elements and the mixing coefficients. Alternating minimization is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-07-30 Alekh Agarwal , Animashree Anandkumar , Prateek Jain , Praneeth Netrapalli

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms usually require a substantial amount of interaction data and perform well only for specific tasks in a fixed environment. In some scenarios such as healthcare, however, usually only few records are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-17 Chaochao Lu , Biwei Huang , Ke Wang , José Miguel Hernández-Lobato , Kun Zhang , Bernhard Schölkopf

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has achieved remarkable success in sequential decision tasks. However, recent studies have revealed the vulnerability of RL policies to different perturbations, raising concerns about their effectiveness and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-08 Buqing Nie , Yangqing Fu , Jingtian Ji , Yue Gao

Reinforcement learning has been shown to perform a range of complex tasks through interaction with an environment or collected leveraging experience. However, many of these approaches presume optimal or near optimal experiences or the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-21 Chapman Siu , Jason Traish , Richard Yi Da Xu

In reinforcement learning (RL) theory, the concept of most confusing instances is central to establishing regret lower bounds, that is, the minimal exploration needed to solve a problem. Given a reference model and its optimal policy, a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Waris Radji , Odalric-Ambrym Maillard

Reinforcement learning usually assumes a given or sometimes even fixed environment in which an agent seeks an optimal policy to maximize its long-term discounted reward. In contrast, we consider agents that are not limited to passive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Ziqing Lu , Babak Hassibi , Lifeng Lai , Weiyu Xu

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown remarkable abilities in learning policies for decision-making tasks. However, RL is often hindered by issues such as low sample efficiency, lack of interpretability, and sparse supervision signals. To…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-02-16 Xidong Feng , Ziyu Wan , Mengyue Yang , Ziyan Wang , Girish A. Koushik , Yali Du , Ying Wen , Jun Wang

This paper bridges some of the gap between optimal planning and reinforcement learning (RL), both of which share roots in dynamic programming applied to sequential decision making or optimal control. Whereas planning typically favors…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Filip V. Georgiev , Kalle G. Timperi , Başak Sakçak , Steven M. LaValle

Machine Learning models become increasingly proficient in complex tasks. However, even for experts in the field, it can be difficult to understand what the model learned. This hampers trust and acceptance, and it obstructs the possibility…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-07-24 Jasper van der Waa , Jurriaan van Diggelen , Karel van den Bosch , Mark Neerincx

We introduce Random Reward Perturbation (RRP), a novel exploration strategy for reinforcement learning (RL). Our theoretical analyses demonstrate that adding zero-mean noise to environmental rewards effectively enhances policy diversity…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-11 Haozhe Ma , Guoji Fu , Zhengding Luo , Jiele Wu , Tze-Yun Leong