Related papers: Policy Iteration is well suited to optimize PageRa…

This paper investigates the optimization problem of an infinite stage discrete time Markov decision process (MDP) with a long-run average metric considering both mean and variance of rewards together. Such performance metric is important…

In most common settings of Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent evaluate a policy based on expectation of (discounted) sum of rewards. However in many applications this criterion might not be suitable from two perspective: first, in risk…

The key assumption underlying linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is that the learner has access to a known feature map $\phi(x, a)$ that maps state-action pairs to $d$-dimensional vectors, and that the rewards and transitions are…

Solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) remains a central challenge in sequential decision-making, especially when dealing with large state spaces and long-term optimization criteria. A key step in Bellman dynamic programming algorithms is…

We study strategy synthesis for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). The particular problem is to determine strategies that provably adhere to (probabilistic) temporal logic constraints. This problem is computationally…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) is viewed as an optimization of an objective function over certain linear operators over general function spaces. A new existence result is established for the existence of optimal policies in general MDPs,…

We consider the problem of computing optimal policies in average-reward Markov decision processes. This classical problem can be formulated as a linear program directly amenable to saddle-point optimization methods, albeit with a number of…

Long-run average optimization problems for Markov decision processes (MDPs) require constructing policies with optimal steady-state behavior, i.e., optimal limit frequency of visits to the states. However, such policies may suffer from…

We propose empirical dynamic programming algorithms for Markov decision processes (MDPs). In these algorithms, the exact expectation in the Bellman operator in classical value iteration is replaced by an empirical estimate to get `empirical…

This paper investigates the limit behavior of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) made of independent particles evolving in a common environment, when the number of particles goes to infinity. In the finite horizon case or with a discounted…

Given two labelled Markov decision processes (MDPs), the trace-refinement problem asks whether for all strategies of the first MDP there exists a strategy of the second MDP such that the induced labelled Markov chains are trace-equivalent.…

We investigate the termination problem of a family of multi-path polynomial programs (MPPs), in which all assignments to program variables are polynomials, and test conditions of loops and conditional statements are polynomial equalities.…

Interpretability of AI models allows for user safety checks to build trust in such AIs. In particular, Decision Trees (DTs) provide a global look at the learned model and transparently reveal which features of the input are critical for…

Suppose an agent is in a (possibly unknown) Markov Decision Process in the absence of a reward signal, what might we hope that an agent can efficiently learn to do? This work studies a broad class of objectives that are defined solely as…

It has recently been shown that if feedback effects of decisions are ignored, then imposing fairness constraints such as demographic parity or equality of opportunity can actually exacerbate unfairness. We propose to address this challenge…

This paper concentrates on the reliability of a discrete-time controlled Markov system with finite states and actions, and aims to give an efficient algorithm for obtaining an optimal (control) policy that makes the system have the maximal…

The development of Policy Iteration (PI) has inspired many recent algorithms for Reinforcement Learning (RL), including several policy gradient methods that gained both theoretical soundness and empirical success on a variety of tasks. The…

Autonomous systems are often required to operate in partially observable environments. They must reliably execute a specified objective even with incomplete information about the state of the environment. We propose a methodology to…

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a popular model for performance analysis and optimization of stochastic systems. The parameters of stochastic behavior of MDPs are estimates from empirical observations of a system; their values are not…