Statistical Reinforcement Learning: Modern Machine Learning Approaches

by Masashi Sugiyama

Reinforcement learning is a mathematical framework for developing computer agents that can learn an optimal behavior by relating generic reward signals with its past actions. With numerous successful applications in business intelligence, plant control, and gaming, the RL framework is ideal for decision making in unknown environments with large amounts of data.Supplying an up-to-date and accessible introduction to the field, Statistical Reinforcement Modern Machine Learning Approaches presents fundamental concepts and practical algorithms of statistical reinforcement learning from the modern machine learning viewpoint. It covers various types of RL approaches, including model-based and model-free approaches, policy iteration, and policy search methods.Covers the range of reinforcement learning algorithms from a modern perspectiveLays out the associated optimization problems for each reinforcement learning scenario coveredProvides thought-provoking statistical treatment of reinforcement learning algorithmsThe book covers approaches recently introduced in the data mining and machine learning fields to provide a systematic bridge between RL and data mining/machine learning researchers. It presents state-of-the-art results, including dimensionality reduction in RL and risk-sensitive RL. Numerous illustrative examples are included to help readers understand the intuition and usefulness of reinforcement learning techniques.This book is an ideal resource for graduate-level students in computer science and applied statistics programs, as well as researchers and engineers in related fields.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

About the author

Masashi Sugiyama is Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Reviews

[Birdf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise introduction to the methods used in reinforcement learning, prior to the age of deep neural networks. Useful if one wants a quick summary of main categories of algorithms.