English
Related papers

Related papers: Does the Markov Decision Process Fit the Data: Tes…

200 papers

This paper considers the permissive supervisor synthesis for probabilistic systems modeled as Markov Decision Processes (MDP). Such systems are prevalent in power grids, transportation networks, communication networks and robotics. Unlike…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2017-03-23 Bo Wu , Xiaobin Zhang , Hai Lin

Temporal difference (TD) learning is a fundamental algorithm for estimating value functions in reinforcement learning. Recent finite-time analyses of TD with linear function approximation quantify its theoretical convergence rate. However,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Yunxiang Li , Mark Schmidt , Reza Babanezhad , Sharan Vaswani

We are interested in understanding stability (almost sure boundedness) of stochastic approximation algorithms (SAs) driven by a `controlled Markov' process. Analyzing this class of algorithms is important, since many reinforcement learning…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-05-18 Arunselvan Ramaswamy , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We provide a framework for speeding up algorithms for time-bounded reachability analysis of continuous-time Markov decision processes. The principle is to find a small, but almost equivalent subsystem of the original system and only analyse…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-07-26 Pranav Ashok , Yuliya Butkova , Holger Hermanns , Jan Křetínský

Driven by the need to capture users' evolving interests and optimize their long-term experiences, more and more recommender systems have started to model recommendation as a Markov decision process and employ reinforcement learning to…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2021-11-02 Dell Zhang , Jun Wang

Robust Markov decision processes (r-MDPs) extend MDPs by explicitly modelling epistemic uncertainty about transition dynamics. Learning r-MDPs from interactions with an unknown environment enables the synthesis of robust policies with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-21 Yannik Schnitzer , Alessandro Abate , David Parker

This paper investigates the optimization problem of an infinite stage discrete time Markov decision process (MDP) with a long-run average metric considering both mean and variance of rewards together. Such performance metric is important…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-08-11 Li Xia

Typical Recommender systems adopt a static view of the recommendation process and treat it as a prediction problem. We argue that it is more appropriate to view the problem of generating recommendations as a sequential decision problem and,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-05-19 Guy Shani , Ronen I. Brafman , David Heckerman

A popular perspective in Reinforcement learning (RL) casts the problem as probabilistic inference on a graphical model of the Markov decision process (MDP). The core object of study is the probability of each state-action pair being visited…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-23 Jean Tarbouriech , Tor Lattimore , Brendan O'Donoghue

Sequential recommendation refers to recommending the next item of interest for a specific user based on his/her historical behavior sequence up to a certain time. While previous research has extensively examined Markov chain-based…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2025-01-06 DongYu Du , Yue Chan

In the traditional view of reinforcement learning, the agent's goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes its expected sum of rewards. Once the agent finds this policy, the learning ends. This view contrasts with \emph{continual…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-16 Esraa Elelimy , David Szepesvari , Martha White , Michael Bowling

We introduce a novel framework to account for sensitivity to rewards uncertainty in sequential decision-making problems. While risk-sensitive formulations for Markov decision processes studied so far focus on the distribution of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-16 Nelson Vadori , Sumitra Ganesh , Prashant Reddy , Manuela Veloso

We study a Markov matching market involving a planner and a set of strategic agents on the two sides of the market. At each step, the agents are presented with a dynamical context, where the contexts determine the utilities. The planner…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-09 Yifei Min , Tianhao Wang , Ruitu Xu , Zhaoran Wang , Michael I. Jordan , Zhuoran Yang

This paper investigates methods for estimating the optimal stochastic control policy for a Markov Decision Process with unknown transition dynamics and an unknown reward function. This form of model-free reinforcement learning comprises…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-06 Brandon Trabucco , Albert Qu , Simon Li , Ganeshkumar Ashokavardhanan

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are standard models for probabilistic systems with non-deterministic behaviours. Mean payoff (or long-run average reward) provides a mathematically elegant formalism to express performance related…

Performance · Computer Science 2017-09-08 Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer

A new model for controlled sensing for multihypothesis testing is proposed and studied in the sequential setting. This new model, termed {\em controlled Markovian observation} model, exhibits a more complicated memory structure in the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-07-01 Sirin Nitinawarat , Venupogal V. Veeravalli

Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL) is frequently used to formally specify control objectives such as probabilistic reachability and safety. In this work, we focus on model checking PCTL specifications statistically on Markov…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-23 Yu Wang , Nima Roohi , Matthew West , Mahesh Viswanathan , Geir E. Dullerud

Existing reinforcement learning approaches for Large Language Models typically perform policy optimization at the granularity of individual tokens or entire response sequences. However, such formulations often misalign with the natural…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Lei Gao , Zhuoming Li , Mengxi Jia , Jiakang Yuan , Hongbo Sun , Hao Sun , Xuelong Li

The goal of imitation learning is for an apprentice to learn how to behave in a stochastic environment by observing a mentor demonstrating the correct behavior. Accurate prior knowledge about the correct behavior can reduce the need for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-06-26 Umar Syed , Robert E. Schapire

In this paper, we consider the gradual-impulse control problem of continuous-time Markov decision processes, where the system performance is measured by the expectation of the exponential utility of the total cost. We prove, under very…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-16 Xin Guo , Aiko Kurushima , Alexey Piunovskiy , Yi Zhang