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arXiv research

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.

168,742 papers · 148 categories

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139278417556 · Jun 202019922001200920172026
48 results for Reward Machines

Paper introduces PRMs to learn non-Markovian stochastic rewards for reinforcement learning.

problem Lack of structured representation for non-Markovian stochastic rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Introduces probabilistic reward machines (PRMs) and presents an algorithm to learn them from decision processes.
result Algorithm proves correct and convergent for learning PRMs from decision processes.

Enhances reward specification in RL with a novel language-based approach.

problem Reward specification in RL can lead to unintended, potentially harmful behaviours.
method Developed a novel class of language-based Reward Machines using RML's built-in memory.
result Can specify non-regular, non-Markovian reward functions for complex tasks.

New algorithm uses machine learning to predict rewards for decision-making problems.

problem Sequential decision-making under uncertainty with scarce online data.
method Machine Learning-Assisted Upper Confidence Bound (MLA-UCB) algorithm.
result Proves to improve cumulative regret even with biased surrogate rewards.

Efficient RL in PRMs with improved regret bound.

problem Reinforcement learning in probabilistic reward machines with non-Markovian rewards.
method Design of an algorithm with a new regret bound of O~(HOAT+H2O2A3/2+HT)\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{HOAT} + H^2O^2A^{3/2} + H\sqrt{T}).
result Improved regret bound over existing methods, matching lower bound up to a logarithmic factor.

The paper proposes a model reward scheme for collaborative ML based on Shapley value and information gain.

problem Designing fair incentives for collaborative machine learning.
method The paper proposes a reward scheme based on Shapley value and information gain, with properties like fairness and stability.
result The proposed reward scheme satisfies fairness and trade-offs between desirable properties via an adjustable parameter.

HAMLET optimizes algorithm selection for machine learning tasks.

problem Limited time budgets and computational resources make traditional bandit approaches ineffective for automated algorithm selection.
method HAMLET incorporates learning curve extrapolation and time-awareness to select machine learning algorithms.
result HAMLET variants outperform other bandit-based strategies in experiments with recorded hyperparameter tuning traces.

Unified framework improves diffusion model rewards without full trajectories.

problem Limited theoretical understanding of guided diffusion samplers.
method Developed a unified algorithmic and theoretical framework for diffusion guidance and reward-guided diffusion.
result Framework shows CFG decreases expected reciprocal of classifier probability.

The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a classic example of the exploration-exploitation dilemma. It is concerned with maximising the total rewards for a gambler by sequentially pulling an arm from a multi-armed slot machine where each arm is associated with a reward distribution. In static MABs, the reward distributi…

2017-12-08abs ↗pdf ↗

I describe an optimal control view of adversarial machine learning, where the dynamical system is the machine learner, the input are adversarial actions, and the control costs are defined by the adversary's goals to do harm and be hard to detect. This view encompasses many types of adversarial machine learning, includi…

2018-11-11abs ↗pdf ↗

Paper simplifies complex AI exploration by predicting future rewards.

problem Training machines to optimally gather complex information.
method Developed a denser reward structure using cross-value to decouple exploration and exploitation.
result Demonstrated successful learning of challenging tasks without shaping or bonuses.

The Artificial Prediction Market is a recent machine learning technique for multi-class classification, inspired from the financial markets. It involves a number of trained market participants that bet on the possible outcomes and are rewarded if they predict correctly. This paper generalizes the scope of the Artificia…

2012-04-18abs ↗pdf ↗

RoME optimizes mobile health interventions by modeling user and time-specific effects.

problem Challenges in optimizing mobile health interventions due to participant heterogeneity, nonstationarity, and nonlinear relationships.
method RoME uses a Robust Mixed-Effects contextual bandit algorithm with random effects, network cohesion penalties, and debiased machine learning.
result RoME achieves robust regret bounds even with complex baseline rewards, demonstrating superior performance in simulations and studies.

We consider a novel stochastic multi-armed bandit setting, where playing an arm makes it unavailable for a fixed number of time slots thereafter. This models situations where reusing an arm too often is undesirable (e.g. making the same product recommendation repeatedly) or infeasible (e.g. compute job scheduling on ma…

2019-07-27abs ↗pdf ↗

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.

Machine learning improves portfolio allocation between index and risk-free assets.

problem Finding optimal portfolio rules for time-varying returns and volatility.
method Two Random Forest models: one for sign probabilities of excess return, the other for optimized volatility.
result Substantial improvements in utility, risk-adjusted returns, and maximum drawdowns over buy-and-hold.

This work tackles the challenge of aligning generative models without explicit reward signals.

problem Aligning generative models without explicit reward signals.
method A Bilevel Optimization framework where the reward function is treated as the optimization variable of an outer-level problem.
result Theoretical analysis and insights generalize to tabular classification and model-based reinforcement learning.

We introduce in this paper a new algorithm for Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problems. A machine learning paradigm popular within Cognitive Network related topics (e.g., Spectrum Sensing and Allocation). We focus on the case where the rewards are exponentially distributed, which is common when dealing with Rayleigh fading c…

2012-04-07abs ↗pdf ↗

In many biomedical, science, and engineering problems, one must sequentially decide which action to take next so as to maximize rewards. One general class of algorithms for optimizing interactions with the world, while simultaneously learning how the world operates, is the multi-armed bandit setting and, in particular,…

2017-09-10abs ↗pdf ↗

Data in real-world application often exhibit skewed class distribution which poses an intense challenge for machine learning. Conventional classification algorithms are not effective in the case of imbalanced data distribution, and may fail when the data distribution is highly imbalanced. To address this issue, we prop…

2019-01-05abs ↗pdf ↗

Recent studies have shown that reinforcement learning (RL) is an effective approach for improving the performance of neural machine translation (NMT) system. However, due to its instability, successfully RL training is challenging, especially in real-world systems where deep models and large datasets are leveraged. In …

2018-08-27abs ↗pdf ↗

Reward hacking exploits misspecified rewards, affecting agent capabilities and true performance.

problem Reward hacking in RL models exploiting reward misspecifications.
method Constructed four RL environments with misspecified rewards; analyzed agent capabilities and behavior.
result More capable agents exploit reward misspecifications, achieving higher proxy reward but lower true reward.

Self-supervised reward prediction improves RL in sparse reward settings.

problem Data efficiency and sparse reward signals in reinforcement learning.
method Learning a state representation for reward prediction and using it to shape rewards.
result Self-supervised reward prediction enhances RL algorithms in single-goal environments.

The study categorizes reward errors in reinforcement learning, finding some can be beneficial.

problem Training language models with imperfect proxy rewards.
method Theoretical analysis of policy gradient optimization and categorization of reward errors.
result Reward errors can be benign or even beneficial, preventing policy from stalling.

Reward collapse occurs when ranking-based reward models yield uniform rewards for different prompts.

problem Reward collapse in aligning large language models with human preferences.
method Introduced a prompt-aware optimization scheme to derive closed-form expressions for reward distributions.
result Our prompt-aware utility functions significantly alleviate reward collapse during training.

Proposes a method to boost deep reinforcement learning with sparse rewards.

problem Challenges in learning complex behaviors with long horizons and sparse rewards.
method Predictive coding for reward shaping.
result Achieves better learning by providing reward signals that understand environment dynamics and emphasize useful features.

Humans and animals show remarkable flexibility in adjusting their behaviour when their goals, or rewards in the environment change. While such flexibility is a hallmark of intelligent behaviour, these multi-task scenarios remain an important challenge for machine learning algorithms and neurobiological models alike. We…

2019-06-18abs ↗pdf ↗

Action guidance helps agents learn true objectives in games with sparse rewards.

problem Training agents in games with sparse rewards requires significant exploration.
method Action guidance, a novel technique that combines exploration with reward shaping.
result Action guidance enables agents to optimize true objectives efficiently.

New RL method uses distance between states instead of rewards for sparse reward environments.

problem Sparse rewards or non-reward environments in reinforcement learning.
method Uses goal-distance gradient and bridge point planning for policy improvement.
result Significantly better performance on sparse reward and local optimal problems in complex environments.

Paper proposes RRD to learn proxy rewards for sparse delayed rewards in episodic reinforcement learning.

problem Learning from sparse and delayed rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Randomized Return Decomposition (RRD) algorithm to redistribute rewards.
result Substantial improvement over baseline algorithms in experiments.

Learning reward functions from data is a promising path towards achieving scalable Reinforcement Learning (RL) for robotics. However, a major challenge in training agents from learned reward models is that the agent can learn to exploit errors in the reward model to achieve high reward behaviors that do not correspond …

2019-11-01abs ↗pdf ↗

Reward tweaking optimizes behavior for long-term goals by adjusting the reward function.

problem Optimizing behavior for long-term goals in reinforcement learning with unstable long planning horizons.
method Reward tweaking learns a surrogate reward function that induces optimal behavior for the original task.
result Reward tweaking guides agents towards better long-term returns while planning for short horizons.

New RL method improves on standard discounted RL for operations research.

problem Applying RL to operations research problems, especially with non-zero rewards.
method Near-Blackwell-optimal RL algorithm that assesses average reward per step.
result Proves viability on challenging queuing system problems.

We propose a generic, Bayesian, information geometric approach to the exploration--exploitation trade-off in multi-armed bandit problems. Our approach, BelMan, uniformly supports pure exploration, exploration--exploitation, and two-phase bandit problems. The knowledge on bandit arms and their reward distributions is su…

2018-05-04abs ↗pdf ↗