A locally-built, LLM-digested index of recent arXiv papers in quant finance, geometry/topology, and statistical ML — keyword search served straight from SQLite on this machine.
SARSA is an on-policy algorithm to learn a Markov decision process policy in reinforcement learning. We investigate the SARSA algorithm with linear function approximation under the non-i.i.d.\ data, where a single sample trajectory is available. With a Lipschitz continuous policy improvement operator that is smooth eno…
We propose a method for efficient training of Q-functions for continuous-state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) such that the traces of the resulting policies satisfy a given Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) property. LTL, a modal logic, can express a wide range of time-dependent logical properties (including "safety") that…
Policy gradient based reinforcement learning algorithms coupled with neural networks have shown success in learning complex policies in the model free continuous action space control setting. However, explicitly parameterized policies are limited by the scope of the chosen parametric probability distribution. We show t…
Batch Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms attempt to choose a policy from a designer-provided class of policies given a fixed set of training data. Choosing the policy which maximizes an estimate of return often leads to over-fitting when only limited data is available, due to the size of the policy class in relatio…
Policy gradient is an efficient technique for improving a policy in a reinforcement learning setting. However, vanilla online variants are on-policy only and not able to take advantage of off-policy data. In this paper we describe a new technique that combines policy gradient with off-policy Q-learning, drawing experie…
Typically, operational risk losses are reported above a threshold. Fitting data reported above a constant threshold is a well known and studied problem. However, in practice, the losses are scaled for business and other factors before the fitting and thus the threshold is varying across the scaled data sample. A report…
In the context of learning deterministic policies in continuous domains, we revisit an approach, which was first proposed in Continuous Actor Critic Learning Automaton (CACLA) and later extended in Neural Fitted Actor Critic (NFAC). This approach is based on a policy update different from that of deterministic policy g…
We consider the problem of learning a policy for a Markov decision process consistent with data captured on the state-actions pairs followed by the policy. We assume that the policy belongs to a class of parameterized policies which are defined using features associated with the state-action pairs. The features are kno…
We present a new method of blackbox optimization via gradient approximation with the use of structured random orthogonal matrices, providing more accurate estimators than baselines and with provable theoretical guarantees. We show that this algorithm can be successfully applied to learn better quality compact policies …
We study how the behavior of deep policy gradient algorithms reflects the conceptual framework motivating their development. To this end, we propose a fine-grained analysis of state-of-the-art methods based on key elements of this framework: gradient estimation, value prediction, and optimization landscapes. Our result…
This work uses statistical bootstrapping to provide accurate confidence intervals for policy value in reinforcement learning.
problem Bias in estimating policy value using empirical transitions and rewards.
method Statistical bootstrapping to produce calibrated confidence intervals for the true policy value.
result Statistical bootstrapping can yield correct confidence intervals under certain conditions, and mechanisms are proposed to mitigate these conditions.
We present an off-policy actor-critic algorithm for Reinforcement Learning (RL) that combines ideas from gradient-free optimization via stochastic search with learned action-value function. The result is a simple procedure consisting of three steps: i) policy evaluation by estimating a parametric action-value function;…
The paper develops models for asset returns based on market conditions and uses them to construct a trading policy.
problem Developing a robust trading strategy based on market conditions.
method The authors create stratified models of asset return mean and covariance, fit these models using Laplacian regularization, and combine them with a Markowitz optimization method.
result The trading policy performs well out of sample and can be scaled to larger problems.
Risk-controlled post-processing optimizes decision policies under risk constraints.
problem Optimizing decision policies with risk constraints for better outcomes.
method Developed a post-processing algorithm that selects a threshold based on fitted fallback policy and score, leveraging tools from algorithmic stability and stochastic processes.
result The post-processed policy achieves precise expected risk control under exchangeability and meets or nearly meets risk budgets while preserving more agreement with the baseline.