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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.

169,051 papers · 148 categories

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48 results for deep policy gradients

Deep policy gradient algorithms deviate from their framework's predictions.

problem Understanding the behavior of deep policy gradient algorithms.
method Fine-grained analysis of gradient estimation, value prediction, and optimization landscapes.
result The surrogate objective does not match the true reward landscape, learned value estimators fail to fit the true value function, and gradient estimates poorly correlate with the true gradient.

Paper presents a rank-1 approximation method for natural policy gradients in deep RL.

problem Computing natural gradients requires inverting the Fisher Information Matrix, which is computationally expensive.
method Develops a rank-1 approximation to the inverse Fisher Information Matrix for efficient natural policy optimization.
result The rank-1 approximation converges faster and has similar sample complexity to stochastic policy gradient methods.

A new method for RL with continuous actions improves stability and scalability.

problem Stability and scalability issues in existing RL methods.
method Soft policy gradient with entropy regularization, combined with double sampling for soft Bellman equation.
result Outperforms off-policy prior methods in continuous action RL tasks.

This paper merges deterministic policy gradient estimations to improve deep reinforcement learning performance.

problem The bias-variance tradeoff in estimating and using policy gradients for deep reinforcement learning.
method Introduces elite policy gradients and a two-step merging method to balance bias-variance tradeoffs.
result Two-step merging outperforms interpolation merging and state-of-the-art algorithms on benchmark control tasks.

Study shows code-level optimizations significantly impact deep RL algorithms.

problem Understanding the impact of implementation details on deep RL algorithms.
method Case study on PPO and TRPO, investigating the effects of code-level optimizations.
result Code-level optimizations are crucial for performance in deep RL algorithms.

This paper uses deep reinforcement learning to optimize stock portfolios considering transaction costs and risks.

problem Optimizing stock portfolios with transaction costs and risks.
method Formulated stock portfolio optimization as a reinforcement learning problem, applied DDPG, GDPG, and PPO algorithms, and used Wavelet Transform.
result DDPG and GDPG algorithms outperformed PPO in continuous action space.

Empirical analysis of gradient descent optimizers in Deep RL.

problem Performance degradation in gradient descent methods for Deep RL.
method Analysis of various gradient descent optimizers and their hyperparameters.
result Adaptive optimizers have a narrow effective learning rate window, diverging in other cases.

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.

Efficient deep policy gradient method for continuous-time control problems.

problem Optimal control in continuous time with fine time discretization.
method Multi-scale deep policy gradient method with varying time discretization.
result Targeted efficiency in computational resources achieved through multi-scale approach.

Paper proposes MCTSPO for better reinforcement learning policy optimization.

problem Local optima and saddle points in gradient-based methods and poor initialization in gradient-free methods.
method Monte-Carlo tree search combined with gradient-free optimization.
result Improved performance on reinforcement learning tasks with deceptive or sparse reward functions.

FACMAC combines deep policy gradients with factored critic for multi-agent reinforcement learning.

problem Cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning in discrete and continuous action spaces.
method FACMAC uses a centralised but factored critic, combining per-agent utilities into a joint action-value function.
result FACMAC outperforms MADDPG and other baselines on multi-agent particle environments and StarCraft II tasks.

This paper compares eight DRL algorithms for dynamic hedging.

problem Optimal dynamic hedging strategies using Deep Reinforcement Learning.
method Eight DRL algorithms (MCPG, PPO, DQL, DDPG) compared using a GJR-GARCH(1,1) simulated dataset.
result MCPG and PPO outperform the Black-Scholes delta hedge baseline.

Recent advances in policy gradient methods and deep learning have demonstrated their applicability for complex reinforcement learning problems. However, the variance of the performance gradient estimates obtained from the simulation is often excessive, leading to poor sample efficiency. In this paper, we apply the stoc…

2017-10-17abs ↗pdf ↗

New algorithm reduces variance in Monte Carlo simulations using deep neural networks and policy gradients.

problem Reducing variance in Monte Carlo simulations for estimating function values.
method Optimal correlation search using deep neural networks and policy gradients.
result Optimal correlation function reduces variance by approximating and calibrating policy.

This research enhances exploration in DDPG using latent trajectory optimization.

problem Limited exploration in DDPG with deterministic policies.
method Model-based trajectory optimization for exploration in DDPG, using a learned deep dynamics model.
result Improved performance in continuous control tasks, especially with sparse rewards and images.

Policy-gradient method controls multiple non-cohesive targets.

problem Controlling multiple non-cohesive targets in a decentralized manner.
method Proximal Policy Optimization for target selection and driving.
result Effective control of non-cohesive targets without prior dynamics knowledge.

Genetic algorithms have been widely used in many practical optimization problems. Inspired by natural selection, operators, including mutation, crossover and selection, provide effective heuristics for search and black-box optimization. However, they have not been shown useful for deep reinforcement learning, possibly …

2017-11-03abs ↗pdf ↗

Paper improves reinforcement learning efficiency with deterministic value gradients.

problem High sample complexity in model-free DDPG algorithms for continuous control tasks.
method Proposes DVG and DVPG algorithms with infinite horizon value gradients to improve sample efficiency.
result DVPG algorithm substantially outperforms state-of-the-art methods on continuous control benchmarks.

Deep learning finds mathematical equations from data.

problem Discovering underlying mathematical expressions from datasets.
method Uses a recurrent neural network to search for mathematical expressions and optimizes using a risk-seeking policy gradient.
result Outperforms existing methods in recovering exact symbolic expressions.

A new Q-learning variant reduces underestimation bias in deep reinforcement learning.

problem Underestimation bias in deep reinforcement learning policies.
method Introducing a novel, parameter-free Deep Q-learning variant.
result Significantly outperforms existing approaches and improves state-of-the-art performance.

PROPEL learns interpretable programmatic policies using imitation and projection.

problem Learning interpretable programmatic policies in reinforcement learning.
method PROPEL is a meta-algorithm based on three insights: optimization in policy space, neural-program mixing, and imitation synthesis.
result PROPEL significantly outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in learning programmatic policies.

A reinforcement learning framework for Mars rover control using temporal logic.

problem Sparse rewards in continuous-state continuous-action MDPs with high-level temporal structures.
method Actor-critic, model-free, online RL framework with modular DDPG architecture.
result Success rate of synthesised policy in Mars rover experiment.

The paper investigates the effects of invalid action masking in policy gradient algorithms.

problem Invalid actions in policy gradient algorithms can lead to suboptimal performance.
method The paper provides theoretical justification and empirical demonstrations of the importance of invalid action masking.
result Invalid action masking is crucial as the number of invalid actions increases.

The paper evaluates and improves reinforcement learning algorithms for portfolio management.

problem Improving reinforcement learning for financial portfolio optimization.
method Implemented and compared DDPG, PPO, and PG algorithms; introduced adversarial training.
result Policy Gradient (PG) outperforms DDPG and PPO in financial markets.

New method reduces state distribution mismatch in off-policy RL.

problem State distribution mismatch in off-policy RL algorithms.
method Develops a novel constrained off-policy gradient objective to minimize state distribution shift.
result Minimizing state distribution shift improves performance in off-policy RL algorithms.

Deep actor-critic learning optimizes power control in mobile networks.

problem Optimizing power control in large-scale wireless mobile networks.
method Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning with deep deterministic policy gradient.
result The algorithm maximizes a global utility function in a distributed manner.

New method improves dialogue agents focusing on simple utterances.

problem Dialogue agents often focus on simple utterances and suboptimal policies.
method Tempered Policy Gradient (TPG) methods to improve dialogue performance.
result Significant improvements in dialogue performance, especially in producing convincing utterances.

Neural Replicator Dynamics improves deep RL performance in nonstationary environments.

problem Nonstationarity and instability in multiagent reinforcement learning.
method Derive a new algorithm using replicator dynamics to bypass softmax in policy gradient methods.
result Neural Replicator Dynamics (NeuRD) outperforms policy gradient methods in nonstationary environments.

NPMD uses CNNs to optimize policies on low-dimensional manifolds, reducing sample complexity.

problem Explaining the effectiveness of deep policy gradient methods in high-dimensional RL.
method Neural policy mirror descent (NPMD) with CNNs, considering state spaces as low-dimensional manifolds.
result NPMD finds ε-optimal policies with O(ε^(-d/α-2)) samples, leveraging low-dimensional structure.

Algorithm optimizes system design and control for better rewards.

problem Optimizing system design and control for maximum rewards.
method Deep reinforcement learning combining policy gradient and model-based optimization.
result DEPS algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in various environments.

Proposes a new policy gradient algorithm to improve reinforcement learning efficiency and stability.

problem Inefficiency and instability of DDPG in practical applications, and difficulty in controlling Q estimation bias and variance.
method Introduces a Regularly Updated Deterministic (RUD) policy gradient algorithm.
result The RUD algorithm makes better use of new data and has lower Q value variance, leading to improved performance.

Paper uses deep reinforcement learning for cryptocurrency market making.

problem Stochastic inventory control challenges faced by market makers.
method Two policy gradient-based algorithms interact with an environment representing limit order book data and order flow statistics. A forward-feed neural network approximates the policy function, and two reward functions are compared.
result Demonstrates deep reinforcement learning's effectiveness in solving market making challenges.

New method improves deep RL efficiency by adaptively setting accuracy requirements.

problem Improving efficiency in deep reinforcement learning.
method Accuracy-based curriculum learning using adaptive selection of accuracy requirements.
result Adaptive accuracy requirements lead to better learning efficiency than random selection.

Develops a new reinforcement learning framework for complex control problems.

problem Continuous-time extended mean field control with deterministic policies.
method Model-free sensitivity formula, deterministic policy gradient, local value and advantage-rate representations.
result Demonstrates efficiency, stability, and robustness in solving complex control problems.