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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.

168,657 papers · 148 categories

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115230344459 · Jun 202019922001200920172026
48 results for reward specification

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.

A language for specifying complex reinforcement learning tasks.

problem Challenges in specifying and shaping reward functions for complex reinforcement learning tasks.
method Proposes a new language and algorithm for automatically generating and shaping reward functions.
result SPECTRL tool outperforms state-of-the-art baselines.

Optimizes reward learning design for complex tasks using nonparametric methods.

problem Challenges in specifying reward functions for complex tasks.
method Models rewards and policies as nonparametric functions in RKHSs, derives risk bounds, and optimizes query design.
result Derives non-asymptotic excess risk bounds and finite sample statistical rates for reward learning.

Study optimal reward schemes for inducing desired player performance in risky contests.

problem Designing optimal rewards to encourage desired performance levels in risky contests.
method Analyzed the optimal reward schemes for inducing average and specific rank performance.
result Optimal reward schemes can have surprising shapes, not just related to inequality.

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 ↗

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 good performance in sparse reward or non-reward environments. Although using shap…

2020-01-01abs ↗pdf ↗

SharedRep-RLHF learns shared traits for diverse groups, improving fairness and performance.

problem Uniform-reward RLHF fails to capture diverse preferences, leading to unfairness.
method SharedRep-RLHF learns shared traits among various groups, improving fairness and performance.
result SharedRep-RLHF outperforms MaxMin-RLHF by up to 20% in win rate.

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.

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.

A novel framework refines diffusion models iteratively for better downstream reward optimization.

problem Optimizing reward functions during inference of diffusion models.
method Iterative refinement process with noising and reward-guided denoising steps.
result Superior empirical performance in protein and DNA design.

Text generation is a crucial task in NLP. Recently, several adversarial generative models have been proposed to improve the exposure bias problem in text generation. Though these models gain great success, they still suffer from the problems of reward sparsity and mode collapse. In order to address these two problems, …

2018-04-30abs ↗pdf ↗

Imitation Learning describes the problem of recovering an expert policy from demonstrations. While inverse reinforcement learning approaches are known to be very sample-efficient in terms of expert demonstrations, they usually require problem-dependent reward functions or a (task-)specific reward-function regularizatio…

2019-06-19abs ↗pdf ↗

SARA uses similarity to learn rewards robustly and adaptively.

problem Robustness to labeler errors and adaptability to diverse feedback formats.
method Contrastive framework that learns latent representations and computes rewards as similarities.
result Strong performance on offline RL benchmarks and diverse applications.

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 Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit problem is a sequential decision-making problem in which an agent selects a set of arms on each round, observes feedback for each of these arms and aims to maximize a known reward function of the arms it chose. While previous work proved regret upper bounds in this setting for gener…

2020-02-13abs ↗pdf ↗

New algorithm uses Whittle index to improve Q-learning for restless bandits.

problem Optimizing decision-making in multiarmed restless bandits with average reward.
method Introduces a novel reinforcement learning algorithm combining Q-learning and Whittle index policy.
result Demonstrates significant computational gains and excellent empirical performance.

Imitation by observation is an approach for learning from expert demonstrations that lack action information, such as videos. Recent approaches to this problem can be placed into two broad categories: training dynamics models that aim to predict the actions taken between states, and learning rewards or features for com…

2019-05-20abs ↗pdf ↗

Reinforcement learning agents are prone to undesired behaviors due to reward mis-specification. Finding a set of reward functions to properly guide agent behaviors is particularly challenging in multi-agent scenarios. Inverse reinforcement learning provides a framework to automatically acquire suitable reward functions…

2019-07-30abs ↗pdf ↗

Adjoint Matching improves flow and diffusion models with reward fine-tuning.

problem Improving generative models with reward fine-tuning.
method Casting reward fine-tuning as stochastic optimal control (SOC) and enforcing a specific noise schedule.
result Adjoint Matching outperforms existing SOC algorithms.

A new method recovers rewards from behavior policies using classification and regression.

problem Recovering meaningful rewards from observed behavior in reinforcement learning.
method GenPQR, a modular procedure that estimates behavior policy, evaluates soft Q-function, and recovers normalized reward using classification and regression.
result GenPQR matches or improves reward recovery compared to DeepPQR, while being simpler and more modular.

Contextual bandits are online learners that, given an input, select an arm and receive a reward for that arm. They use the reward as a learning signal and aim to maximize the total reward over the inputs. Contextual bandits are commonly used to solve recommendation or ranking problems. This paper considers a learning s…

2019-10-11abs ↗pdf ↗

A significant challenge for the practical application of reinforcement learning in the real world is the need to specify an oracle reward function that correctly defines a task. Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) seeks to avoid this challenge by instead inferring a reward function from expert behavior. While appealin…

2018-05-31abs ↗pdf ↗

New RL method explores environments without rewards, achieving efficient policy generation.

problem Efficiently exploring unknown environments without predefined rewards.
method Optimistic value-iteration algorithm with kernel and neural function approximations.
result Achieves O~(1/ε2)\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(1 /\varepsilon^2) sample complexity for generating policies or equilibria.

Two novel methods identify influential features in CMABs for better reward distribution.

problem Suboptimal features degrade rewards, interpretability, and efficiency in CMABs.
method Heterogeneous Incremental Effect (HIE) and Heterogeneous Distribution Divergence (HDD) methods.
result Consistent ability to identify influential HTE features, enhancing CMAB performance.

Optimal sample complexity analysis for plug-in approach in average-reward MDPs.

problem Learning optimal policies in average-reward MDPs with a generative model.
method Plug-in approach that constructs a model estimate and computes an optimal policy.
result Optimal sample complexities for the plug-in approach without prior knowledge of problem parameters.

The Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework highlights the tension between acquiring new knowledge (Exploration) and leveraging available knowledge (Exploitation). In the classical MAB problem, a decision maker must choose an arm at each time step, upon which she receives a reward. The decision maker's objective is to maxi…

2017-02-23abs ↗pdf ↗

Deep learning has achieved remarkable successes in solving challenging reinforcement learning (RL) problems when dense reward function is provided. However, in sparse reward environment it still often suffers from the need to carefully shape reward function to guide policy optimization. This limits the applicability of…

2019-02-01abs ↗pdf ↗

Study on deep neural networks for reward modeling with pairwise comparison data.

problem Reward modeling with deep neural networks in non-parametric settings.
method Established a non-asymptotic regret bound for deep reward estimators, introduced a margin-type condition.
result Improved regret bound for deep reward estimators, highlighting the importance of clear human beliefs.

COCOA improves credit assignment in reinforcement learning by measuring contributions to rewards.

problem Improving sample efficiency in reinforcement learning through better credit assignment methods.
method Counterfactual Contribution Analysis (COCOA) for precise credit assignment.
result COCOA achieves lower bias and variance compared to Hindsight Credit Assignment (HCA), improving reinforcement learning performance.

Proposes a new theoretical framework for PbRL that requires less human feedback.

problem Lack of theoretical work capturing practical PbRL frameworks.
method Introduces a reward-agnostic PbRL framework that acquires exploratory trajectories before human feedback.
result Demonstrates improved sample complexity for learning optimal policies in linear and low-rank MDPs.

Investigates risk measures for DC pension decumulation.

problem Develop optimal decumulation strategies for DC plan holders.
method Formulates decumulation as a control problem, studies risk measures (expected shortfall, linear shortfall, probability of shortfall).
result Optimal controls for expected reward and expected shortfall are identical to those for expected reward and linear shortfall.

In many settings (e.g., robotics) demonstrations provide a natural way to specify tasks; however, most methods for learning from demonstrations either do not provide guarantees that the artifacts learned for the tasks, such as rewards or policies, can be safely composed and/or do not explicitly capture history dependen…

2019-07-26abs ↗pdf ↗