Related papers: Exact finite approximations of average-cost counta…

For infinite-horizon average-cost criterion problems, there exist relatively few rigorous approximation and reinforcement learning results. In this paper, for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with standard Borel spaces, (i) we first provide…

Verification of infinite-state Markov chains is still a challenge despite several fruitful numerical or statistical approaches. For decisive Markov chains, there is a simple numerical algorithm that frames the reachability probability as…

The embedding problem of Markov transition matrices into continuous-time Markov semigroups is a classic problem that regained a lot of impetus and activities in recent years. We consider it here for the following generalisation of the…

We consider deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) and apply max-plus algebra tools to approximate the value iteration algorithm by a smaller-dimensional iteration based on a representation on dictionaries of value functions. The…

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a risk measure of variability in cost, under the risk-aware MDPs paradigm. Previous studies showed that risk-aware MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handling risk, can be…

We consider a dynamic programming (DP) approach to approximately solving an infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problem with a fixed initial-state for the expected total discounted-reward criterion with a…

In the Markov decision process model, policies are usually evaluated by expected cumulative rewards. As this decision criterion is not always suitable, we propose in this paper an algorithm for computing a policy optimal for the quantile…

We study the computational complexity of the infinite-horizon discounted-reward Markov Decision Problem (MDP) with a finite state space $|\mathcal{S}|$ and a finite action space $|\mathcal{A}|$. We show that any randomized algorithm needs a…

We consider the problem of controlling a fully specified Markov decision process (MDP), also known as the planning problem, when the state space is very large and calculating the optimal policy is intractable. Instead, we pursue the more…

We study finite memory belief approximation for partially observable (PO) stochastic optimal control (SOC) problems. While belief states are sufficient for SOC in partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), they are generally…

Markov chains are the de facto finite-state model for stochastic dynamical systems, and Markov decision processes (MDPs) extend Markov chains by incorporating non-deterministic behaviors. Given an MDP and rewards on states, a classical…

Recently two approximate Newton methods were proposed for the optimisation of Markov Decision Processes. While these methods were shown to have desirable properties, such as a guarantee that the preconditioner is negative-semidefinite when…

We consider exchangeable Markov multi-state survival processes -- temporal processes taking values over a state-space$\mathcal{S}$ with at least one absorbing failure state $\flat \in \mathcal{S}$ that satisfy natural invariance properties…

We study upper and lower bounds on the sample-complexity of learning near-optimal behaviour in finite-state discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). For the upper bound we make the assumption that each action leads to at most two…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are standard models for probabilistic systems with non-deterministic behaviours. Mean payoff (or long-run average reward) provides a mathematically elegant formalism to express performance related…

Standard Markov decision process (MDP) and reinforcement learning algorithms optimize the policy with respect to the expected gain. We propose an algorithm which enables to optimize an alternative objective: the probability that the gain is…

This paper presents a state representation for reward-free Markov decision processes. The idea is to learn, in a self-supervised manner, an embedding space where distances between pairs of embedded states correspond to the minimum number of…

We consider a finite number of $N$ statistically equal agents, each moving on a finite set of states according to a continuous-time Markov Decision Process (MDP). Transition intensities of the agents and generated rewards depend not only on…

A popular approach to solving large probabilistic systems relies on aggregating states based on a measure of similarity. Many approaches in the literature are heuristic. A number of recent methods rely instead on metrics based on the notion…

Many probabilistic inference problems such as stochastic filtering or the computation of rare event probabilities require model analysis under initial and terminal constraints. We propose a solution to this bridging problem for the widely…