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A tenet of reinforcement learning is that the agent always observes rewards. However, this is not true in many realistic settings, e.g., a human observer may not always be available to provide rewards, sensors may be limited or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Alireza Kazemipour , Simone Parisi , Matthew E. Taylor , Michael Bowling

We study Markov decision processes (MDPs) with multiple limit-average (or mean-payoff) functions. We consider two different objectives, namely, expectation and satisfaction objectives. Given an MDP with k limit-average functions, in the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-07-01 Tomáš Brázdil , Václav Brožek , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Vojtěch Forejt , Antonín Kučera

We consider reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the infinite-horizon, average-reward setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, a continuous-time process moves to a state and stays there for a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-03 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou

In reinforcement learning, the reward function on current state and action is widely used. When the objective is about the expectation of the (discounted) total reward only, it works perfectly. However, if the objective involves the total…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-12-03 Shuai Ma , Jia Yuan Yu

This paper studies an accelerated fitted value iteration (FVI) algorithm to solve high-dimensional Markov decision processes (MDPs). FVI is an approximate dynamic programming algorithm that has desirable theoretical properties. However, it…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-30 Sixiang Zhao , William B. Haskell , Michel-Alexandre Cardin

General purpose intelligent learning agents cycle through (complex,non-MDP) sequences of observations, actions, and rewards. On the other hand, reinforcement learning is well-developed for small finite state Markov Decision Processes…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2009-12-30 Marcus Hutter

This paper analyzes reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the average-reward criterion. We focus on Q-learning algorithms based on relative value iteration (RVI), which are model-free stochastic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-30 Yi Wan , Huizhen Yu , Richard S. Sutton

Markov decision problems (MDPs) provide the foundations for a number of problems of interest to AI researchers studying automated planning and reinforcement learning. In this paper, we summarize results regarding the complexity of solving…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-21 Michael L. Littman , Thomas L. Dean , Leslie Pack Kaelbling

We study reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon average-reward settings with linear MDPs. Previous work addresses this problem by approximating the average-reward setting by discounted setting and employing a value iteration-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-17 Kihyuk Hong , Ambuj Tewari

In this paper, we study a mean-variance optimization problem in an infinite horizon discrete time discounted Markov decision process (MDP). The objective is to minimize the variance of system rewards with the constraint of mean performance.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-08-24 Li Xia

Multi-period mean-variance optimization is a long-standing problem, caused by the failure of dynamic programming principle. This paper studies the mean-variance optimization in a setting of finite-horizon discrete-time Markov decision…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-31 Li Xia , Zhihui Yu

Computing optimal conditional reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is tractable by a reduction to reachability probabilities. Yet, this reduction yields cyclic, challenging MDPs that are often notoriously hard to…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Milan Češka , Sebastian Junges , Luko van der Maas , Filip Macák , Tim Quatmann

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (or minimize…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-07-07 Mahmoud El Chamie , Behcet Acikmese

Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) generalize classical MDPs that consider uncertainties in transition probabilities by defining a set of possible transition functions. An objective is a set of runs (or infinite trajectories) of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-05-08 Ali Asadi , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Ehsan Kafshdar Goharshady , Mehrdad Karrabi , Ali Shafiee

Planning problems where effects of actions are non-deterministic can be modeled as Markov decision processes. Planning problems are usually goal-directed. This paper proposes several techniques for exploiting the goal-directedness to…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-08 Nevin Lianwen Zhang , Weihong Zhang

We study the relation between different Markov Decision Process (MDP) frameworks in the machine learning and econometrics literatures, including the standard MDP, the entropy and general regularized MDP, and stochastic MDP, where the latter…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-08-19 Tien Mai , Patrick Jaillet

This paper examines a number of solution methods for decision processes with non-Markovian rewards (NMRDPs). They all exploit a temporal logic specification of the reward function to automatically translate the NMRDP into an equivalent…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2012-12-12 Charles Gretton , David Price , Sylvie Thiebaux

Algorithms developed under stationary Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) often face challenges in non-stationary environments, and infinite-horizon formulations may not directly apply to finite-horizon tasks. To address these limitations, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Zhizuo Chen , Theodore T. Allen

We resolve the open question regarding the sample complexity of policy learning for maximizing the long-run average reward associated with a uniformly ergodic Markov decision process (MDP), assuming a generative model. In this context, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Shengbo Wang , Jose Blanchet , Peter Glynn

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) allow to compute reliable solutions for dynamic decision problems whose evolution is modeled by rewards and partially-known transition probabilities. Unfortunately, accounting for uncertainty in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-18 Chin Pang Ho , Marek Petrik , Wolfram Wiesemann