Related papers: Minimizing Expected Termination Time in One-Counte…
We propose an algorithm for deterministic continuous Markov Decision Processes with sparse rewards that computes the optimal policy exactly with no dependency on the size of the state space. The algorithm has time complexity of $O( |R|^3…
Consider a general path planning problem of a robot on a graph with edge costs, and where each node has a Boolean value of success or failure (with respect to some task) with a given probability. The objective is to plan a path for the…
We consider partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with a set of target states and positive integer costs associated with every transition. The traditional optimization objective (stochastic shortest path) asks to minimize…
We consider the multi-period portfolio optimization problem with a single asset that can be held long or short. Due to the presence of transaction costs, maximizing the immediate reward at each period may prove detrimental, as frequent…
We consider multiple-environment Markov decision processes (MEMDP), which consist of a finite set of MDPs over the same state space, representing different scenarios of transition structure and probability. The value of a strategy is the…
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 this paper, we consider multi-dimensional maximal cost-bounded reachability probability over continuous-time Markov decision processes (CTMDPs). Our major contributions are as follows. Firstly, we derive an integral characterization…
Canonical models of Markov decision processes (MDPs) usually consider geometric discounting based on a constant discount factor. While this standard modeling approach has led to many elegant results, some recent studies indicate the…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a canonical model to reason about decision making within a stochastic environment. We study a fundamental class of infinite MDPs: one-counter MDPs (OC-MDPs). They extend finite MDPs via an associated…
Given a batch of human computation tasks, a commonly ignored aspect is how the price (i.e., the reward paid to human workers) of these tasks must be set or varied in order to meet latency or cost constraints. Often, the price is set…
We present a numerical method to compute expectations of functionals of a piecewise-deterministic Markov process. We discuss time dependent functionals as well as deterministic time horizon problems. Our approach is based on the…
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…
We study computational and statistical aspects of learning Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs). In this model, the learner interacts with an MDP drawn at the beginning of each epoch from an unknown mixture of MDPs. To sidestep known…
Optimising queries in real-world situations under imperfect conditions is still a problem that has not been fully solved. We consider finding the optimal order in which to execute a given set of selection operators under partial ignorance…
The Makespan Scheduling problem is an extensively studied NP-hard problem, and its simplest version looks for an allocation approach for a set of jobs with deterministic processing times to two identical machines such that the makespan is…
Large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) require planning algorithms with runtime independent of the number of states of the MDP. We consider the planning problem in MDPs using linear value function approximation with only weak…
We consider infinite-horizon $\gamma$-discounted Markov Decision Processes, for which it is known that there exists a stationary optimal policy. We consider the algorithm Value Iteration and the sequence of policies $\pi_1,...,\pi_k$ it…
In this article we propose a Weighted Stochastic Mesh (WSM) Algorithm for approximating the value of a discrete and continuous time optimal stopping problem. We prove that in the discrete case the WSM algorithm leads to semi-tractability of…
In this paper, we develop approximate dynamic programming methods for stochastic systems modeled as Markov Decision Processes, given both soft performance criteria and hard constraints in a class of probabilistic temporal logic called…
This paper addresses the problem of approximating the set of all solutions for Multi-objective Markov Decision Processes. We show that in the vast majority of interesting cases, the number of solutions is exponential or even infinite. In…