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Sequential decisions in volatile, high-stakes settings require more than maximizing expected return; they require principled uncertainty management. This paper presents the Uncertainty-Aware Markov Decision Process (UAMDP), a unified…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 Michal Koren , Or Peretz , Tai Dinh , Philip S. Yu

We study a primal-dual (PD) reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm for online constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs). Despite its widespread practical use, the existing theoretical literature on PD-RL algorithms for this problem only…

We consider episodic reinforcement learning in reward-mixing Markov decision processes (RMMDPs): at the beginning of every episode nature randomly picks a latent reward model among $M$ candidates and an agent interacts with the MDP…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-07 Jeongyeol Kwon , Yonathan Efroni , Constantine Caramanis , Shie Mannor

Uncertain partially observable Markov decision processes (uPOMDPs) allow the probabilistic transition and observation functions of standard POMDPs to belong to a so-called uncertainty set. Such uncertainty, referred to as epistemic…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-11-02 Murat Cubuktepe , Nils Jansen , Sebastian Junges , Ahmadreza Marandi , Marnix Suilen , Ufuk Topcu

This paper proposes a new formulation for the dynamic resource allocation problem, which converts the traditional MDP model with known parameters and no capacity constraints to a new model with uncertain parameters and a resource capacity…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-10 Onur Demiray , Evrim Didem Güneş , Lerzan Örmeci

We consider the Markov Decision Process (MDP) of selecting a subset of items at each step, termed the Select-MDP (S-MDP). The large state and action spaces of S-MDPs make them intractable to solve with typical reinforcement learning (RL)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-10 Hyungseok Song , Hyeryung Jang , Hai H. Tran , Se-eun Yoon , Kyunghwan Son , Donggyu Yun , Hyoju Chung , Yung Yi

We present a technique for speeding up the convergence of value iteration for partially observable Markov decisions processes (POMDPs). The underlying idea is similar to that behind modified policy iteration for fully observable Markov…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-01-30 Nevin Lianwen Zhang , Stephen S. Lee , Weihong Zhang

Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) intend to ensure robustness with respect to changing or adversarial system behavior. In this framework, transitions are modeled as arbitrary elements of a known and properly structured uncertainty…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-07-25 Esther Derman , Daniel Mankowitz , Timothy Mann , Shie Mannor

Software-intensive systems, such as software product lines and robotics, utilise Markov decision processes (MDPs) to capture uncertainty and analyse sequential decision-making problems. Despite the usefulness of conventional policy…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Alexandros Evangelidis , Gricel Vázquez , Simos Gerasimou

We consider the problem of controlling a Markov decision process (MDP) with a large state space, so as to minimize average cost. Since it is intractable to compete with the optimal policy for large scale problems, we pursue the more modest…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-02-28 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Peter L. Bartlett , Alan Malek

The online portfolio selection (OLPS) problem differs from classical portfolio model problems, as it involves making sequential investment decisions. Many OLPS strategies described in the literature capture market movement based on various…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2022-06-03 Man Yiu Tsang , Tony Sit , Hoi Ying Wong

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-10-26 Aymen Al Marjani , Aurélien Garivier , Alexandre Proutiere

We consider deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) and apply max-plus algebra tools to approximate the value iteration algorithm by a smaller-dimensional iteration based on a representation on dictionaries of value functions. The…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-21 Francis Bach

We consider a distributionally robust Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (DR-POMDP), where the distribution of the transition-observation probabilities is unknown at the beginning of each decision period, but their realizations…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-09 Hideaki Nakao , Ruiwei Jiang , Siqian Shen

Integrated task and motion planning has emerged as a challenging problem in sequential decision making, where a robot needs to compute high-level strategy and low-level motion plans for solving complex tasks. While high-level strategies…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-02-19 Siddharth Srivastava , Nishant Desai , Richard Freedman , Shlomo Zilberstein

Real-life parallel machine scheduling problems can be characterized by: (i) limited information about the exact task duration at scheduling time, and (ii) an opportunity to reschedule the remaining tasks each time a task processing is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-22 Izack Cohen , Krzysztof Postek , Shimrit Shtern

This paper initiates the study of scale-free learning in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where the scale of rewards/losses is unknown to the learner. We design a generic algorithmic framework, \underline{S}cale \underline{C}lipping…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-05 Mingyu Chen , Xuezhou Zhang

Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) provide a framework for sequential decision-making that is robust to perturbations on the transition kernel. However, current RMDP methods are often limited to small-scale problems, hindering their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-13 Kaixin Wang , Uri Gadot , Navdeep Kumar , Kfir Levy , Shie Mannor

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…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-06 Bo Wu , Niklas Lauffer , Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Suda Bharadwaj , Zhe Xu , Ufuk Topcu

We consider the problem of learning to optimize an unknown Markov decision process (MDP). We show that, if the MDP can be parameterized within some known function class, we can obtain regret bounds that scale with the dimensionality, rather…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2014-11-04 Ian Osband , Benjamin Van Roy