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Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is a popular Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling method. One drawback is that it requires the computation of the full gradient at each iteration, an expensive operation if the dimension of the problem is high. We…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-06 Zhiyan Ding , Qin Li , Jianfeng Lu , Stephen J. Wright

Thompson Sampling is one of the most effective methods for contextual bandits and has been generalized to posterior sampling for certain MDP settings. However, existing posterior sampling methods for reinforcement learning are limited by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-24 Christoph Dann , Mehryar Mohri , Tong Zhang , Julian Zimmert

In this paper, we provide a new algorithm for the problem of prediction in Reinforcement Learning, \emph{i.e.}, estimating the Value Function of a Markov Reward Process (MRP) using the linear function approximation architecture, with memory…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-09-30 Ajin George Joseph , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We study reinforcement learning (RL) with linear function approximation in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) satisfying \emph{linear Bellman completeness} -- a fundamental setting where the Bellman backup of any linear value function remains…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Zakaria Mhammedi , Alexander Rakhlin , Nneka Okolo

Although RLVR has become an essential component for developing advanced reasoning skills in language models, contemporary studies have documented training plateaus after thousands of optimization steps, i.e., notable decreases in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-08 Fang Wu , Weihao Xuan , Heli Qi , Ximing Lu , Aaron Tu , Li Erran Li , Yejin Choi

Bayesian posterior sampling techniques have demonstrated superior empirical performance in many exploration-exploitation settings. However, their theoretical analysis remains a challenge, especially in complex settings like reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-30 Priyank Agrawal , Shipra Agrawal , Azmat Azati

We study off-dynamics Reinforcement Learning (RL), where the policy is trained on a source domain and deployed to a distinct target domain. We aim to solve this problem via online distributionally robust Markov decision processes (DRMDPs),…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-26 Zhishuai Liu , Pan Xu

We consider the task of MCMC sampling from a distribution defined on a discrete space. Building on recent insights provided in [Zan19], we devise a class of efficient continuous-time, non-reversible algorithms which make active use of the…

Computation · Statistics 2019-12-19 Samuel Power , Jacob Vorstrup Goldman

Performing exact Bayesian inference for complex models is computationally intractable. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms can provide reliable approximations of the posterior distribution but are expensive for large datasets and…

Computation · Statistics 2021-12-09 Maxime Vono , Daniel Paulin , Arnaud Doucet

Nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models arise in numerous applications in statistics and signal processing. In this context, one of the most successful and popular approximation techniques is the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm,…

Computation · Statistics 2016-04-20 Francois Septier , Gareth W. Peters

To overcome the curses of dimensionality and modeling of Dynamic Programming (DP) methods to solve Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems, Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods are adopted in practice. Contrary to traditional RL algorithms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-24 Arghyadip Roy , Vivek Borkar , Abhay Karandikar , Prasanna Chaporkar

We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) framework for multi-objective decision-making, where the agent seeks to optimize a vector of rewards rather than a single scalar value. The objective is to ensure that the time-averaged reward vector…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-18 Rahul Misra , Manuela L. Bujorianu , Rafał Wisniewski

A simple and natural algorithm for reinforcement learning (RL) is Monte Carlo Exploring Starts (MCES), where the Q-function is estimated by averaging the Monte Carlo returns, and the policy is improved by choosing actions that maximize the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-08 Che Wang , Shuhan Yuan , Kai Shao , Keith Ross

Performing Bayesian inference via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) can be exceedingly expensive when posterior evaluations invoke the evaluation of a computationally expensive model, such as a system of partial differential equations. In…

Computation · Statistics 2017-12-27 Patrick Conrad , Andrew Davis , Youssef Marzouk , Natesh Pillai , Aaron Smith

Reinforcement Learning algorithms that learn from human feedback (RLHF) need to be efficient in terms of statistical complexity, computational complexity, and query complexity. In this work, we consider the RLHF setting where the feedback…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-14 Runzhe Wu , Wen Sun

This research focused on enhancing post-incident malware forensic investigation using reinforcement learning RL. We proposed an advanced MDP post incident malware forensics investigation model and framework to expedite post incident…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-01-08 Dipo Dunsin , Mohamed Chahine Ghanem , Karim Ouazzane , Vassil Vassilev

This paper concerns the central issues of model robustness and sample efficiency in offline reinforcement learning (RL), which aims to learn to perform decision making from history data without active exploration. Due to uncertainties and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-01 Laixi Shi , Yuejie Chi

A novel approach to learning is presented, combining features of on-line and off-line methods to achieve considerable performance in the task of learning a backgammon value function in a process that exploits the processing power of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-04 Gregory R. Galperin

We introduce \textit{Policy Guided Monte Carlo} (PGMC), a computational framework using reinforcement learning to improve Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. The methodology is generally applicable, unbiased and opens up a new path to…

Computational Physics · Physics 2018-12-12 Troels Arnfred Bojesen

We study reinforcement learning (RL) with linear function approximation. For episodic time-inhomogeneous linear Markov decision processes (linear MDPs) whose transition probability can be parameterized as a linear function of a given…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-07 Jiafan He , Heyang Zhao , Dongruo Zhou , Quanquan Gu