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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.

168,695 papers · 148 categories

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295786114 · Jun 202019922001200920172026
48 results for temporal abstractions

We introduce a variational approach to learning and inference of temporally hierarchical structure and representation for sequential data. We propose the Variational Temporal Abstraction (VTA), a hierarchical recurrent state space model that can infer the latent temporal structure and thus perform the stochastic state …

2019-10-02abs ↗pdf ↗

Temporal abstraction refers to the ability of an agent to use behaviours of controllers which act for a limited, variable amount of time. The options framework describes such behaviours as consisting of a subset of states in which they can initiate, an internal policy and a stochastic termination condition. However, mu…

2020-01-01abs ↗pdf ↗

To act and plan in complex environments, we posit that agents should have a mental simulator of the world with three characteristics: (a) it should build an abstract state representing the condition of the world; (b) it should form a belief which represents uncertainty on the world; (c) it should go beyond simple step-…

2018-06-08abs ↗pdf ↗

We propose a recurrent extension of the Ladder networks whose structure is motivated by the inference required in hierarchical latent variable models. We demonstrate that the recurrent Ladder is able to handle a wide variety of complex learning tasks that benefit from iterative inference and temporal modeling. The arch…

2017-07-28abs ↗pdf ↗

The paper introduces a method to learn Markov state abstractions for reinforcement learning.

problem Learning Markov state representations in complex environments.
method The paper introduces a novel set of conditions and a training procedure combining inverse model estimation and temporal contrastive learning.
result The approach learns representations that capture the underlying structure of the domain and improve sample efficiency.

In reinforcement learning (RL), temporal abstraction still remains as an important and unsolved problem. The options framework provided clues to temporal abstraction in the RL, and the option-critic architecture elegantly solved the two problems of finding options and learning RL agents in an end-to-end manner. However…

2019-04-15abs ↗pdf ↗

Planning methods can solve temporally extended sequential decision making problems by composing simple behaviors. However, planning requires suitable abstractions for the states and transitions, which typically need to be designed by hand. In contrast, model-free reinforcement learning (RL) can acquire behaviors from l…

2019-11-19abs ↗pdf ↗

Develops hierarchical reinforcement learning value function approximators.

problem Estimating long-term returns in reinforcement learning with multiple goals.
method Introduces hierarchical universal value function approximators (H-UVFAs) using the options framework.
result Demonstrates generalization and improved performance of H-UVFAs over UVFAs.

Agents compose pre-trained policies for complex tasks, improving zero-shot performance.

problem Challenges in long-horizon predictions and estimating visitation distributions induced by policy sequences.
method Learn predictive jumpy world models of multi-step dynamics, enhancing predictions with a consistency objective.
result Compositional planning with jumpy world models yields, on average, a 200% relative improvement over primitive actions on long-horizon tasks.

This paper presents a way of solving Markov Decision Processes that combines state abstraction and temporal abstraction. Specifically, we combine state aggregation with the options framework and demonstrate that they work well together and indeed it is only after one combines the two that the full benefit of each is re…

2015-01-16abs ↗pdf ↗

Proves efficient learning of hierarchical structure in meta-reinforcement learning.

problem Lack of provable guarantees for learning hierarchical structures in reinforcement learning.
method Analyzed HRL in meta-RL setting with tabular transition dynamics, providing diversity conditions and regret bounds.
result Sample-efficient recovery of natural hierarchical structure with provable guarantees.

Building systems that autonomously create temporal abstractions from data is a key challenge in scaling learning and planning in reinforcement learning. One popular approach for addressing this challenge is the options framework (Sutton et al., 1999). However, only recently in (Bacon et al., 2017) was a policy gradient…

2018-10-27abs ↗pdf ↗

UTE improves reinforcement learning by measuring action uncertainty, enhancing policy learning efficiency.

problem Degrading performance of action repetition in reinforcement learning, especially with sub-optimal actions.
method UTE uses ensemble methods to measure uncertainty during action extension, allowing strategic exploration or certainty.
result UTE outperforms existing action repetition algorithms, significantly enhancing policy learning efficiency.

In this paper, we present Gamma-LSTM, an enhanced long short term memory (LSTM) unit, to enable learning of hierarchical representations through multiple stages of temporal abstractions. Gamma memory, a hierarchical memory unit, forms the central memory of Gamma-LSTM with gates to regulate the information flow into var…

2019-10-25abs ↗pdf ↗

Neuro-symbolic agent learns systematic generalisation from formal instructions.

problem Achieving zero-shot generalisation of formally specified tasks.
method Combines deep reinforcement learning with temporal logic.
result Systematic learning emerges with convolutional layers and abstract operators.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms can suffer from poor sample efficiency when rewards are delayed and sparse. We introduce a solution that enables agents to learn temporally extended actions at multiple levels of abstraction in a sample efficient and automated fashion. Our approach combines universal value functio…

2018-05-21abs ↗pdf ↗

CAWs learn temporal network dynamics without node identities or edge attributes.

problem Learning temporal network dynamics without node identities or edge attributes.
method Causal Anonymous Walks (CAWs) using temporal random walks and hitting counts.
result CAW-N outperforms previous methods in predicting links over 6 real temporal networks.

Object-based approaches for learning action-conditioned dynamics has demonstrated promise for generalization and interpretability. However, existing approaches suffer from structural limitations and optimization difficulties for common environments with multiple dynamic objects. In this paper, we present a novel self-s…

2019-04-16abs ↗pdf ↗

Mid-training improves RL by identifying compact action abstractions.

problem Unlocking full potential of RL with large language models.
method RA3 algorithm that optimizes sequential variational lower bound and discovers latent structures via RL.
result Improves performance by 8 points on HumanEval and 4 points on MBPP.

This paper tests the hypothesis that modeling a scene in terms of entities and their local interactions, as opposed to modeling the scene globally, provides a significant benefit in generalizing to physical tasks in a combinatorial space the learner has not encountered before. We present object-centric perception, pred…

2019-10-28abs ↗pdf ↗

Latent-state environments with long horizons, such as those faced by recommender systems, pose significant challenges for reinforcement learning (RL). In this work, we identify and analyze several key hurdles for RL in such environments, including belief state error and small action advantage. We develop a general prin…

2019-05-29abs ↗pdf ↗

Unified multilinear model for causal factor disentanglement.

problem Disentangling causal factors from complex data without direct manipulation.
method Hierarchical block multilinear factorization (M-mode Block SVD) and incremental approach.
result Interpretable object representation robust to occlusion and reduced training data.

The standard reinforcement learning (RL) formulation considers the expectation of the (discounted) cumulative reward. This is limiting in applications where we are concerned with not only the expected performance, but also the distribution of the performance. In this paper, we introduce micro-objective reinforcement le…

2019-05-24abs ↗pdf ↗

Detects changes in topic proportions over time in large text datasets.

problem Unsupervised detection of structural changes in topic distributions over time.
method Specialised temporal topic model with changepoint detection, approximate inference using sample splitting and likelihood ratio statistic.
result Automated detection of changepoints in topic proportions, facilitating interpretable results.

Learning to cooperate is crucially important in multi-agent environments. The key is to understand the mutual interplay between agents. However, multi-agent environments are highly dynamic, where agents keep moving and their neighbors change quickly. This makes it hard to learn abstract representations of mutual interp…

2018-10-22abs ↗pdf ↗

Abstract MDPs enable strategic exploration and fast reward transfer in complex environments.

problem Challenging to learn accurate MDPs for high-dimensional states.
method Learn an abstract MDP over low-dimensional coarse states, using an abstraction function.
result Achieves superhuman performance on Pitfall! and higher reward with fewer samples.

DSARF models complex spatio-temporal data with deep switching auto-regressive factors.

problem Forecasting complex spatio-temporal data with recurring patterns.
method Deep switching auto-regressive factorization (DSARF) with stochastic variational inference.
result DSARF outperforms state-of-the-art methods in long- and short-term prediction accuracy.

New approach to abstract neural network representations using renormalization group.

problem Developing truly abstract representations in neural networks.
method Renormalization group approach to expand representations to encompass broader data sets.
result Representations in neural networks become more abstract as data breadth increases and depth increases.

Study investigates how simple speech sounds can form abstract categories.

problem How do abstract categories like phonemes emerge from speech exposure?
method Used modeling techniques to test Memory-Based Learning and Error-Correction Learning.
result Error-Correction Learning models can learn abstractions, identifying phone inventory and grouping.

This study investigates the content of the published scientific literature in the fields of operations research and management science (OR/MS) since the early 1950s. Our study is based on 80,757 published journal abstracts from 37 of the leading OR/MS journals. We have developed a topic model, using Latent Dirichlet Al…

2015-10-17abs ↗pdf ↗

Algorithm finds latent structure in value functions for improved reinforcement learning.

problem Finding latent structure in value functions for efficient reinforcement learning.
method Proposes a practical algorithm using two posterior distributions over state abstractions and abstract-state values.
result Substantial performance gains in multi-task settings where tasks share a common, low-dimensional representation.