Related papers: First-order sensitivity of the optimal value in a …
We consider the constrained optimal control problem for the gradual-impulsive CTMDP model with the performance criteria being the expected total undiscounted costs (from the running cost and the cost from each time an impulse being…
Model checking undiscounted reachability and expected-reward properties on Markov decision processes (MDPs) is key for the verification of systems that act under uncertainty. Popular algorithms are policy iteration and variants of value…
In this work, we study the problem of actively classifying the attributes of dynamical systems characterized as a finite set of Markov decision process (MDP) models. We are interested in finding strategies that actively interact with the…
In this paper, we consider the finite-state approximation of a discrete-time constrained Markov decision process (MDP) under the discounted and average cost criteria. Using the linear programming formulation of the constrained discounted…
In many practical settings control decisions must be made under partial/imperfect information about the evolution of a relevant state variable. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) is a relatively well-developed framework…
We investigate the problem of best-policy identification in discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) when the learner has access to a generative model. The objective is to devise a learning algorithm returning the best policy as early as…
This paper considers maximum likelihood (ML) estimation in a large class of models with hidden Markov regimes. We investigate consistency of the ML estimator and local asymptotic normality for the models under general conditions which allow…
The distributionally robust Markov Decision Process (MDP) approach asks for a distributionally robust policy that achieves the maximal expected total reward under the most adversarial distribution of uncertain parameters. In this paper, we…
We present a new methodology for computing sensitivities in evolutionary systems using a model-driven low-rank approximation. To this end, we formulate a variational principle that seeks to minimize the distance between the time derivative…
The ability to compute reward-optimal policies for given and known finite Markov decision processes (MDPs) underpins a variety of applications across planning, controller synthesis, and verification. However, we often want policies (1) to…
Contextual Markov decision processes (CMDPs) describe a class of reinforcement learning problems in which the transition kernels and reward functions can change over time with different MDPs indexed by a context variable. While CMDPs serve…
Differential machine learning (DML) is a recently proposed technique that uses samplewise state derivatives to regularize least square fits to learn conditional expectations of functionals of stochastic processes as functions of state…
A Markov decision process can be parameterized by a transition kernel and a reward function. Both play essential roles in the study of reinforcement learning as evidenced by their presence in the Bellman equations. In our inquiry of various…
In this work we investigate an importance sampling approach for evaluating policies for a structurally time-varying factored Markov decision process (MDP), i.e. the policy's value is estimated with a high-probability confidence interval. In…
We consider the problem of statistical inference in a parametric finite Markov chain model and develop a robust estimator of the parameters defining the transition probabilities via minimization of a suitable (empirical) version of the…
Performative learning addresses the increasingly pervasive situations in which algorithmic decisions may induce changes in the data distribution as a consequence of their public deployment. We propose a novel view in which these…
Optimal control in non-stationary Markov decision processes (MDP) is a challenging problem. The aim in such a control problem is to maximize the long-term discounted reward when the transition dynamics or the reward function can change over…
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…
Stochastic and soft optimal policies resulting from entropy-regularized Markov decision processes (ER-MDP) are desirable for exploration and imitation learning applications. Motivated by the fact that such policies are sensitive with…
By adopting a distributional viewpoint on law-invariant convex risk measures, we construct dynamics risk measures (DRMs) at the distributional level. We then apply these DRMs to investigate Markov decision processes, incorporating latent…