The paper introduces a model-based bootstrap framework for uncertainty quantification in offline policy evaluation (OPE) within finite-horizon, time-inhomogeneous Markov decision processes. Unlike traditional bootstrap methods that resample entire episodes, this approach regenerates trajectories from an estimated MDP, enabling use of diverse offline data formats such as complete trajectories, transition-level observations, and trajectory fragments. The authors prove bootstrap distributional consistency, asymptotically valid confidence intervals, and consistent variance estimation, and demonstrate through simulations that the method yields tighter confidence intervals and more accurate variance estimates compared to existing techniques.
arXiv:2605. 12410v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We propose and analyze a model-based bootstrap for transition kernels in finite controlled Markov chains (CMCs) with possibly nonstationary or history-dependent control policies, a setting that arises naturally in offline reinforcement learning (RL) when the behavior policy generating the data is unknown.
arXiv:2507. 20068v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Off-policy evaluation (OPE) methods estimate the value of a new reinforcement learning (RL) policy prior to deployment.
arXiv:2603. 09344v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Offline reinforcement learning (RL) enables data-efficient and safe policy learning without online exploration, but its performance often degrades under distribution shift.
arXiv:2604.01024v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study model-based learning of finite-window policies in tabular partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). A common approach to le...
arXiv:2510. 03494v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study finite-horizon offline reinforcement learning (RL) with function approximation for both policy evaluation and policy optimization.
In value-based reinforcement learning, improving the accuracy of policy evaluation has been shown to improve downstream policy optimization performance. The widely adopted family of approximations rel...
arXiv:2505.01361v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Temporal difference (TD) learning is a foundational algorithm in reinforcement learning (RL). For nearly forty years, TD learning has served as a w...
Limiting‑Kernel Q(λ) (LKQL) is an off‑policy value estimator that blends n‑step truncation with a long‑horizon approximation based on the limiting kernel. It maintains the computational efficiency of n‑step methods while improving policy evaluation accuracy, especially for long‑horizon tasks. The authors prove faster convergence of LKQL’s operator under aperiodicity and near‑on‑policy conditions, and demonstrate empirical gains on MuJoCo continuous‑control benchmarks.
arXiv:2512. 14617v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Many practical decision-making problems involve tasks whose success depends on the entire system history, rather than on achieving a state with desired properties.
arXiv:2607. 26509v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Deep off-policy reinforcement learning algorithms for continuous control typically rely on neural value function approximation to guide policy improvement.
arXiv:2506. 00818v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Offline reinforcement learning for longitudinal studies often faces two linked challenges: rewards may be binary or bounded, and reward observations may be available only for a subset of trajectories or time points even when the corresponding state-action-next-state histories are available.
arXiv:2606. 20206v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In offline Reinforcement Learning, immediate rewards in logged batch data are often unobserved due to sparse or irregular record-keeping, or censored beyond certain reward values.