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Nonlinear control systems with partial information to the decision maker are prevalent in a variety of applications. As a step toward studying such nonlinear systems, this work explores reinforcement learning methods for finding the optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-11 Yinbin Han , Meisam Razaviyayn , Renyuan Xu

We propose RLAnything, a reinforcement learning framework that dynamically forges environment, policy, and reward models through closed-loop optimization, amplifying learning signals and strengthening the overall RL system for any LLM or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Yinjie Wang , Tianbao Xie , Ke Shen , Mengdi Wang , Ling Yang

Natural policy gradient (NPG) methods are among the most widely used policy optimization algorithms in contemporary reinforcement learning. This class of methods is often applied in conjunction with entropy regularization -- an algorithmic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-09-13 Shicong Cen , Chen Cheng , Yuxin Chen , Yuting Wei , Yuejie Chi

Empirical researchers and decision-makers spanning various domains frequently seek profound insights into the long-term impacts of interventions. While the significance of long-term outcomes is undeniable, an overemphasis on them may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-17 Peng Wu , Ziyu Shen , Feng Xie , Zhongyao Wang , Chunchen Liu , Yan Zeng

Optimizing communication topology is fundamental to the efficiency and effectiveness of Large Language Model (LLM)-based Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). While recent approaches utilize reinforcement learning to dynamically construct…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Yueyang Cang , Xiaoteng Zhang , Erlu Zhao , Zehua Ji , Yuhang Liu , Yuchen He , Zhiyuan Ning , Chen Yijun , Wenge Que , Li Shi

Score-function based methods for policy learning, such as REINFORCE and PPO, have delivered strong results in game-playing and robotics, yet their high variance often undermines training stability. Using pathwise policy gradients, i.e.…

In reinforcement learning, the softmax parametrization is the standard approach for policies over discrete action spaces. However, it fails to capture the order relationship between actions. Motivated by a real-world industrial problem, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Simón Weinberger , Jairo Cugliari

This paper discusses theoretical and experimental aspects of gradient-based approaches to the direct optimization of policy performance in controlled POMDPs. We introduce GPOMDP, a REINFORCE-like algorithm for estimating an approximation to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-08 Jonathan Baxter , Peter L. Bartlett

Generative Flow Networks (GFlowNets) have been shown effective to generate combinatorial objects with desired properties. We here propose a new GFlowNet training framework, with policy-dependent rewards, that bridges keeping flow balance of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Puhua Niu , Shili Wu , Mingzhou Fan , Xiaoning Qian

In this theoretical paper we are concerned with the problem of learning a value function by a smooth general function approximator, to solve a deterministic episodic control problem in a large continuous state space. It is shown that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-01-04 Michael Fairbank , Eduardo Alonso

We consider the problem of imitation learning from a finite set of expert trajectories, without access to reinforcement signals. The classical approach of extracting the expert's reward function via inverse reinforcement learning, followed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-10 Ruohan Wang , Carlo Ciliberto , Pierluigi Amadori , Yiannis Demiris

Policy gradient methods are reinforcement learning algorithms that adapt a parameterized policy by following a performance gradient estimate. Conventional policy gradient methods use Monte-Carlo techniques to estimate the gradient, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Yaakov Engel , Michal Valko

Reinforcement learning usually uses the feedback rewards of environmental to train agents. But the rewards in the actual environment are sparse, and even some environments will not rewards. Most of the current methods are difficult to get…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-13 Kai Jiang , XiaoLong Qin

Our work focuses on training RL agents on multiple visually diverse environments to improve observational generalization performance. In prior methods, policy and value networks are separately optimized using a disjoint network architecture…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-10 Seungyong Moon , JunYeong Lee , Hyun Oh Song

We introduce a distributionally robust approach that enhances the reliability of offline policy evaluation in contextual bandits under general covariate shifts. Our method aims to deliver robust policy evaluation results in the presence of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-12 Yihong Guo , Hao Liu , Yisong Yue , Anqi Liu

In this work, we present a reinforcement learning algorithm that can find a variety of policies (novel policies) for a task that is given by a task reward function. Our method does this by creating a second reward function that recognizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-03 Yunbo Zhang , Wenhao Yu , Greg Turk

We introduce a new distributed policy gradient algorithm and show that it outperforms existing reward-aware training procedures such as REINFORCE, minimum risk training (MRT) and proximal policy optimization (PPO) in terms of training…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2022-07-19 Domenic Donato , Lei Yu , Wang Ling , Chris Dyer

We introduce Multi-CALF, an algorithm that intelligently combines reinforcement learning policies based on their relative value improvements. Our approach integrates a standard RL policy with a theoretically-backed alternative policy,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Georgiy Malaniya , Anton Bolychev , Grigory Yaremenko , Anastasia Krasnaya , Pavel Osinenko

Although it is relatively easy to apply, the gradient method often displays a disappointingly slow rate of convergence. Its convergence is specially based on the structure of the matrix of the algebraic linear system, and on the choice of…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-06-03 Ibrahima Dione

As reinforcement learning techniques are increasingly applied to real-world decision problems, attention has turned to how these algorithms use potentially sensitive information. We consider the task of training a policy that maximizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-17 Chris Cundy , Rishi Desai , Stefano Ermon