Related papers: Killed Markov Decision Processes on Finite Time In…
Optimal Markov Decision Process policies for problems with finite state and action space are identified through a partial ordering by comparing the value function across states. This is referred to as state-based optimality. This paper…
Controllable Markov chains describe the dynamics of sequential decision making tasks and are the central component in optimal control and reinforcement learning. In this work, we give the general form of an optimal policy for learning…
For a large class of Markov Decision Processes, stationary (possibly randomized) policies are globally optimal. However, in Borel state and action spaces, the computation and implementation of even such stationary policies are known to be…
We consider the control of a Markov decision process (MDP) that undergoes an abrupt change in its transition kernel (mode). We formulate the problem of minimizing regret under control-switching based on mode change detection, compared to a…
We present the conditions under which the time-optimal control problem for a nonlinear non-autonomous linearizable system can be solved by the method of successive approximations, at each step of which a power Markov moment min-problem is…
Economic Model Predictive Control (MPC) dissipativity theory is central to discussing the stability of policies resulting from minimizing economic stage costs. In its current form, the dissipativity theory for economic MPC applies to…
We consider a periodic-review, fixed-lifetime perishable inventory control problem where demand is a general stochastic process. The optimal solution for this problem is intractable due to "curse of dimensionality". In this paper, we first…
In this paper, we consider the optimal stopping problem on semi-Markov processes (SMPs) with finite horizon, and aim to establish the existence and computation of optimal stopping times. To achieve the goal, we first develop the main…
The halting problem is undecidable --- but can it be solved for "most" inputs? This natural question was considered in a number of papers, in different settings. We revisit their results and show that most of them can be easily proven in a…
We consider a risk-sensitive optimization of consumption-utility on infinite time horizon where the one-period investment gain depends on an underlying economic state whose evolution over time is assumed to be described by a discrete-time,…
Reinforcement Learning Algorithms are predominantly developed for stationary environments, and the limited literature that considers nonstationary environments often involves specific assumptions about changes that can occur in transition…
We consider approximate dynamic programming for the infinite-horizon stationary $\gamma$-discounted optimal control problem formalized by Markov Decision Processes. While in the exact case it is known that there always exists an optimal…
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…
We consider a change-point detection problem for a simple class of Piecewise Deterministic Markov Processes (PDMPs). A continuous-time PDMP is observed in discrete time and through noise, and the aim is to propose a numerical method to…
The paper provides an overview of the theory and applications of risk-sensitive Markov decision processes. The term 'risk-sensitive' refers here to the use of the Optimized Certainty Equivalent as a means to measure expectation and risk.…
The article poses a general model for optimal control subject to information constraints, motivated in part by recent work of Sims and others on information-constrained decision-making by economic agents. In the average-cost optimal control…
In this paper we extend the predicate logic introduced in [Beauquier et al. 2002] in order to deal with Semi-Markov Processes. We prove that with respect to qualitative probabilistic properties, model checking is decidable for this logic…
We study time-changed Markov processes to speed up the convergence of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. The time-changed process is defined by adjusting the speed of time of a base process via a user-chosen, state-dependent…
We introduce a general framework for Markov decision problems under model uncertainty in a discrete-time infinite horizon setting. By providing a dynamic programming principle we obtain a local-to-global paradigm, namely solving a local,…
We present some hardness results on finding the optimal policy for the static formulation of distributionally robust Markov decision processes. We construct problem instances such that when the considered policy class is Markovian and…