Related papers: Optimizing Quantiles in Preference-based Markov De…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are standard models for dynamic systems with probabilistic and nondeterministic behaviour in uncertain environments. We prove that in POMDPs with long-run average objective, the…
We propose a vector linear programming formulation for a non-stationary, finite-horizon Markov decision process with vector-valued rewards. Pareto efficient policies are shown to correspond to efficient solutions of the linear program, and…
We study policy optimization in an infinite horizon, $\gamma$-discounted constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Our objective is to return a policy that achieves large expected reward with a small constraint violation. We consider the…
We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…
In this work, we investigate the optimal control problem for continuous-time Markov decision processes with the random impact of the environment. We provide conditions to show the existence of optimal controls under finite-horizon criteria.…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are widely used in modeling decision making problems in stochastic environments. However, precise specification of the reward functions in MDPs is often very difficult. Recent approaches have focused on…
This paper presents an axiomatic approach to finite Markov decision processes where the discount rate is zero. One of the principal difficulties in the no discounting case is that, even if attention is restricted to stationary policies, a…
Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…
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…
This paper addresses the problem of optimal control of robotic sensing systems aimed at autonomous information gathering in scenarios such as environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance. The information…
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…
The paper addresses two variants of the stochastic shortest path problem ('optimize the accumulated weight until reaching a goal state') in Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights. The first variant optimizes partial expected…
Dynamic optimization of mean and variance in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is a long-standing challenge caused by the failure of dynamic programming. In this paper, we propose a new approach to find the globally optimal policy for…
This paper describes the structure of optimal policies for infinite-state Markov Decision Processes with setwise continuous transition probabilities. The action sets may be noncompact. The objective criteria are either the expected total…
This work provides a novel interpretation of Markov Decision Processes (MDP) from the online optimization viewpoint. In such an online optimization context, the policy of the MDP is viewed as the decision variable while the corresponding…
Allocating scarce resources among agents to maximize global utility is, in general, computationally challenging. We focus on problems where resources enable agents to execute actions in stochastic environments, modeled as Markov decision…
We investigate the classical active pure exploration problem in Markov Decision Processes, where the agent sequentially selects actions and, from the resulting system trajectory, aims at identifying the best policy as fast as possible. We…
We propose policy gradient algorithms for robust infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with non-rectangular uncertainty sets, thereby addressing an open challenge in the robust MDP literature. Indeed, uncertainty sets that…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the defacto frame-work for sequential decision making in the presence ofstochastic uncertainty. A classical optimization criterion forMDPs is to maximize the expected discounted-sum pay-off, which…
We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…