This paper extends off-policy reinforcement learning to the multi-agent case in which a set of networked agents communicating with their neighbors according to a time-varying graph collaboratively evaluates and improves a target policy while following a distinct behavior policy. To this end, the paper develops a multi-…
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48 results for “Policy Development”
We develop an off-policy actor-critic algorithm for learning an optimal policy from a training set composed of data from multiple individuals. This algorithm is developed with a view towards its use in mobile health.
Develops RL for dynamic risk assessment in stochastic optimization.
problem Time-consistent risk assessment in stochastic optimization problems.
method Model-free reinforcement learning with dynamic convex risk measures, time-consistent dynamic programming, policy gradient updates, actor-critic neural network optimization.
result Demonstrates optimal policies for statistical arbitrage, financial hedging, and robot control.
Develops first-order methods for average-reward MDPs with strong guarantees.
problem Lack of strong theoretical guarantees for first-order methods in AMDPs.
method Average-reward stochastic policy mirror descent (SPMD) and variance-reduced temporal difference (VRTD) methods.
result Establishes sample complexity results for solving AMDPs.
Develops ODRPO to improve RL algorithms with better performance and stability.
problem RL algorithms converge to sub-optimal solutions due to limited policy representation.
method Integrates DRO approach to solve trust region constrained optimization problem without parameterizing policies.
result Achieves globally optimal policy update and higher sample efficiency.
On-policy reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have high sample complexity while off-policy algorithms are difficult to tune. Merging the two holds the promise to develop efficient algorithms that generalize across diverse environments. It is however challenging in practice to find suitable hyper-parameters that gove…
Study examines how economic policy uncertainty impacts stock markets.
problem Dynamic relationship between economic policy uncertainty and stock markets.
method Used symmetric thermal optimal path (TOPS) method.
result Different interaction patterns observed in emerging and developed markets.
Recent policy optimization approaches (Schulman et al., 2015a; 2017) have achieved substantial empirical successes by constructing new proxy optimization objectives. These proxy objectives allow stable and low variance policy learning, but require small policy updates to ensure that the proxy objective remains an accur…
This paper develops explainable treatment policies for RPM using clinical knowledge.
problem Barriers to adoption of DHIs and lack of interpretability in purely black-box algorithms.
method Developed a pipeline for learning explainable treatment policies using clinician-informed representations.
result Policies learned from clinician-informed representations are more efficacious and efficient than black-box policies.
Develops methods to estimate and quantify uncertainty in off-policy evaluation.
problem Uncertainty quantification in off-policy evaluation for new policy deployment.
method Designs a pseudo policy to generate subsamples and applies conformal prediction.
result Valid interval estimators for target policy's return with uncertainty quantification.
Off-policy deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are incapable of learning solely from batch offline data without online interactions with the environment, due to the phenomenon known as \textit{extrapolation error}. This is often due to past data available in the replay buffer that may be quite different from th…
Develops CLTs for Markov chain transition probabilities and policies.
problem Estimating transition probabilities and policies in controlled Markov chains.
method Non-parametric estimator for transition matrices; CLTs for value, Q-, and advantage functions; goodness-of-fit tests.
result Asymptotic normality of estimators under specific logging policies.
The paper proposes an interpretable off-policy learning algorithm for medical treatments.
problem Lack of interpretable methods for personalized treatment decisions from observational data.
method Hyperbox search approach for interpretable policies in disjunctive normal form.
result The proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of regret and is rated highly interpretable by clinical experts.
Statistically Efficient Advantage Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learning in Infinite Horizonsstat.ML
Develops a method to efficiently use offline data for RL policy optimization.
problem Lack of online data for offline RL in mobile health applications.
method Advantage learning framework using optimal Q-estimators.
result New policy converges faster than existing methods.
Study examines how governance, corruption, and R&D affect economic development.
problem The impact of corruption and governance on economic development.
method General equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and a government, including corruption as a fraction of tax revenues.
result Redistribution and innovation-led strategies can mitigate the negative effects of corruption on economic development.
Develops an anytime-valid framework for optimal policy identification from logged contextual bandit data.
problem Selecting the optimal policy from a candidate policy class while monitoring evidence continuously.
method Constructs a time-indexed set that retains the true optimal policy set uniformly over time.
result The procedure allows the analyst to monitor policy values, eliminate clearly suboptimal policies, and stop at data-dependent times without invalidating inference.
Develops DPG methods for continuous-time RL with deterministic policies.
problem High variance and slow convergence in stochastic policy RL methods.
method Derives continuous-time policy gradient formula and proposes CT-DDPG algorithm.
result CT-DDPG achieves superior stability and faster convergence in continuous-time RL.
Develops confidence bounds for off-policy evaluation in contextual bandits.
problem Evaluating policies that were not used to collect data.
method Martingale analysis for non-asymptotic, non-parametric, and valid confidence sequences.
result Empirically tight bounds on failure probability and width.
Developed policy gradient methods for stochastic control with exit time, outperforming traditional techniques in share repurchase pricing.
problem Optimal control with exit time in stochastic models.
method Two types of algorithms: direct policy learning and alternately learning value function and control.
result Policy gradient methods outperform PDE or neural networks in share repurchase pricing.
The paper develops a method to learn robust decision policies from observational data, reducing high-cost outcomes.
problem Learning safe decision policies from observational data with high-risk outcomes.
method Develops a method to learn policies that reduce high-cost outcomes, valid under finite samples and uneven feature overlap.
result Validates the method with real and synthetic data, providing statistical bounds on decision costs.
Paper develops robust policy evaluation for reinforcement learning with outlier and heavy-tailed rewards.
problem Outlier contamination and heavy-tailed rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Develops a fully online robust policy evaluation procedure and efficient statistical inference.
result Establishes the Bahadur-type representation of the estimator and develops an online inference procedure.
We study the problem of off-policy policy optimization in Markov decision processes, and develop a novel off-policy policy gradient method. Prior off-policy policy gradient approaches have generally ignored the mismatch between the distribution of states visited under the behavior policy used to collect data, and what …
Develops a new RL algorithm for medical treatment regimes.
problem Optimal dose determination in continuous action environments.
method Quasi-optimal learning algorithm for near-optimal actions.
result Guaranteed convergence and effectiveness in real applications.
Paper develops IV method for consistent OPE in confounded MDPs.
problem Confounding variables in observational data affect OPE effectiveness.
method Instrumental variable approach for consistent off-policy evaluation.
result IV method enables correct identification of target policy's value.
A new method for learning policies in multiple environments.
problem Learning policies that work in different but related environments.
method Decentralized entropy-regularized policy gradient method.
result The method can learn effective policies in multiple environments.
Analyzes securitization impacts on monetary and fiscal policies.
problem Impact of securitization on monetary and fiscal policies.
method Develops optimal conditions, identifies constraints, introduces new decision models.
result Identifies constraints and interactions of securitization with capital-reserve requirements.
MoMA improves model-based RL by using unrestricted policy classes.
problem Limited sample efficiency and generalizability in model-based offline RL.
method Model-based mirror ascent algorithm with general function approximations.
result Theoretical guarantees and practical implementation of MoMA.
Off-policy evaluation of sequential decision policies from observational data is necessary in applications of batch reinforcement learning such as education and healthcare. In such settings, however, unobserved variables confound observed actions, rendering exact evaluation of new policies impossible, i.e., unidentifia…
Extends OPE to evaluate policies using diverse logging data.
problem Evaluate policies using log data from different policies.
method Develops an OPE method for various logging policies.
result Method's predictions converge to true performance as sample size increases.
Study policy gradient and actor-critic methods for continuous-time reinforcement learning.
problem Continuous-time reinforcement learning with policy gradient and actor-critic approaches.
method Regularized exploratory formulation, martingale approach, simultaneous policy and value function updates.
result Proposed two types of actor-critic algorithms for online and offline learning.
We study the problem of off-policy policy evaluation (OPPE) in RL. In contrast to prior work, we consider how to estimate both the individual policy value and average policy value accurately. We draw inspiration from recent work in causal reasoning, and propose a new finite sample generalization error bound for value e…
On Policy Gradientscs.LG
The goal of policy gradient approaches is to find a policy in a given class of policies which maximizes the expected return. Given a differentiable model of the policy, we want to apply a gradient-ascent technique to reach a local optimum. We mainly use gradient ascent, because it is theoretically well researched. The …
Improves reinforcement learning stability and efficiency.
problem Combining stability and efficiency in reinforcement learning.
method Combines on-policy stability with off-policy sample reuse.
result Demonstrates improved performance in both theory and practice.
New offline RL method handles average-reward MDPs with single-policy coverage.
problem Challenges in offline reinforcement learning due to distribution shift and non-uniform coverage.
method Develops an algorithm based on pessimistic discounted value iteration with quantile clipping.
result First fully single-policy sample complexity bound for average-reward offline RL.
Develops a method to estimate optimal policy value in online learning.
problem Challenges in evaluating ongoing policies in online learning environments.
method Doubly Robust Interval Estimation (DREAM) method.
result Valid inference on online conditional mean estimator with asymptotically normal distribution.
Meta-Reinforcement learning approaches aim to develop learning procedures that can adapt quickly to a distribution of tasks with the help of a few examples. Developing efficient exploration strategies capable of finding the most useful samples becomes critical in such settings. Existing approaches towards finding effic…
Develops methods to create consistent surrogate models for agent-based simulators.
problem High computational costs and misjudgment of interventions in agent-based models.
method Causal abstractions to learn interventionally consistent surrogate models.
result Surrogates trained for interventional consistency closely mimic the agent-based model's behavior under interventions.
The paper tackles robust policy learning in MDPs using statistical methods.
problem Offline data-driven sequential decision making in MDPs.
method Evaluates policies using average rewards centered at policy-induced stationary distributions. Developed a statistically efficient method for estimating robust optimal policies.
result Established a rate-optimal regret bound up to a logarithmic factor.
Bayesian method infers contextual bandit policies robustly.
problem Inference of contextual bandit policies in small sample sizes.
method Empirical likelihood for Bayesian inference.
result Accurate uncertainty measurements and policy comparison.
Develops a support-aware framework for reserve-policy selection in advertising markets.
problem Log-based reserve-price evaluation risks weak support and subgroup harm.
method Support-aware offline decision framework converting logged evidence into certified policies.
result Preserves the best gate-passing policy while eliminating only policies with certified regret.
Deterministic Policy Gradient for Learning Equilibrium in Time-Inconsistent Control Problemsq-fin.CP
Develops a reinforcement learning algorithm for learning deterministic equilibrium policies in time-inconsistent control problems.
problem Learning equilibrium policies in time-inconsistent control problems.
method Continuous-time model-free reinforcement learning algorithm using deterministic policy gradient approach.
result Learned equilibrium policies in general time-inconsistent control problems.
New RL algorithms improve average-reward performance.
problem Improving RL algorithms for average-reward criteria.
method Developed novel algorithms addressing average-reward criterion directly.
result ATRPO significantly outperforms TRPO in challenging MuJuCo environments.
New method extends fitted Q-evaluation for distributional off-policy reinforcement learning.
problem Estimating return distribution in reinforcement learning using offline data.
method Developed a set of guiding principles and new FDE methods with theoretical justification.
result FDE methods outperform existing approaches in simulations and real-world games.
Step-DAD improves BED by periodically updating a design policy during experiments.
problem Improving flexibility and robustness in Bayesian experimental design.
method Semi-amortized, policy-based approach that updates a design policy during data collection.
result Consistently superior decision-making and robustness compared to current BED methods.
Feed in tariff (FiT) is one of the most efficient ways that many governments throughout the world use to stimulate investment in renewable energies (REs) technology. For governments, financial management of the policy is very challenging as that it needs a considerable amount of budget to support RE producers during th…
Study evaluates policies in partially observable environments without full model specification.
problem Evaluating policies in partially observable environments without full model specification.
method Developed non-parametric identification and recursive fitted-Q-evaluation algorithm.
result Established finite-sample error bounds for policy value estimation.
In this paper we consider the basic version of Reinforcement Learning (RL) that involves computing optimal data driven (adaptive) policies for Markovian decision process with unknown transition probabilities. We provide a brief survey of the state of the art of the area and we compare the performance of the classic UCB…
Policy gradient methods are widely used for control in reinforcement learning, particularly for the continuous action setting. There have been a host of theoretically sound algorithms proposed for the on-policy setting, due to the existence of the policy gradient theorem which provides a simplified form for the gradien…