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Theses and Dissertations
This collection contains theses and dissertations of graduate students of the University of Alberta. The collection contains a very large number of theses electronically available that were granted from 1947 to 2009, 90% of theses granted from 2009-2014, and 100% of theses granted from April 2014 to the present (as long as the theses are not under temporary embargo by agreement with the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies). IMPORTANT NOTE: To conduct a comprehensive search of all UofA theses granted and in University of Alberta Libraries collections, search the library catalogue at www.library.ualberta.ca - you may search by Author, Title, Keyword, or search by Department.
To retrieve all theses and dissertations associated with a specific department from the library catalogue, choose 'Advanced' and keyword search "university of alberta dept of english" OR "university of alberta department of english" (for example). Past graduates who wish to have their thesis or dissertation added to this collection can contact us at erahelp@ualberta.ca.
Items in this Collection
- 91Reinforcement Learning
- 21Machine Learning
- 10Artificial Intelligence
- 6Transfer Learning
- 5Planning
- 5Representation Learning
- 1Abbasi Brujeni, Lena
- 1Abbasi-Yadkori, Yasin
- 1Aghakasiri, Kiarash
- 1Alikhasi, Mahdi
- 1Asadi Atui, Kavosh
- 1Banafsheh Rafiee
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Spring 2010
This research focuses on developing AI agents that play arbitrary Atari 2600 console games without having any game-specific assumptions or prior knowledge. Two main approaches are considered: reinforcement learning based methods and search based methods. The RL-based methods use feature vectors...
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Fall 2022
This thesis investigates a new approach to model-based reinforcement learning using background planning: mixing (approximate) dynamic programming updates and model-free updates, similar to the Dyna architecture. Background planning with learned models is often worse than model-free alternatives,...
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Fall 2011
We present a new family of gradient temporal-difference (TD) learning methods with function approximation whose complexity, both in terms of memory and per-time-step computation, scales linearly with the number of learning parameters. TD methods are powerful prediction techniques, and with...
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Improving the reliability of reinforcement learning algorithms through biconjugate Bellman errors
DownloadSpring 2024
In this thesis, we seek to improve the reliability of reinforcement learning algorithms for nonlinear function approximation. Semi-gradient temporal difference (TD) update rules form the basis of most state-of-the-art value function learning systems despite clear counterexamples proving their...
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Fall 2022
We have witnessed the rising popularity of real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL). However, most successful real-world applications of RL rely on high-fidelity simulators that enable rapid iteration of prototypes, hyperparameter selection and policy training. On the other hand, RL...
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Fall 2020
Communication is essential for coordination among humans and animals. Therefore, with the introduction of intelligent agents into the world, agent-to-agent and agent-to-human communication become necessary. Ideally, these agents should be trained in an incremental and decentralized manner. In...
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Fall 2022
This thesis targets output tracking problem for payload position and quadrotor yaw in an slung load system (SLS). In spite of its relatively extensive literature, full SLS control is still a challenging problem since its dimension, nonlinearity, and multiple sources of disturbances are not easy...
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Spring 2021
This thesis investigates the use of general value functions for detecting anomalous behavior in machines. Identifying abnormal behavior is critical for ensuring the safety and reliability of any machine or industrial process. When the cause of these anomalies is due to accumulated wear on...
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Interrelating Prediction and Control Objectives in Episodic Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning
DownloadFall 2020
The reinforcement learning framework provides a simple way to study computational intelligence as the interaction between an agent and an environment. The goal of an agent is to accrue as much reward as possible by intelligently choosing actions given states. This problem of finding a policy that...
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Fall 2021
Powered by advancements of information and Internet technologies, there has been a rapid development in network based applications in recent years. Meanwhile, it is recognized that more attentions need to be paid to the issue of cybersecurity. The security of the network environment plays a vital...