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We propose a compositional approach for constructing abstractions of general Markov decision processes using approximate probabilistic relations. The abstraction framework is based on the notion of $\delta$-lifted relations, using which one…
We study value-iteration (VI) algorithms for solving general (a.k.a. multichain) Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the average-reward criterion, a fundamental but theoretically challenging setting. Beyond the difficulties inherent to…
Markov chains are an important tool for modelling and evaluating systems in computer science, economics, biology and numerous other fields. Thus, approximating Markov chains is a useful tool for decreasing the computational effort needed…
We present metrics for measuring the similarity of states in a finite Markov decision process (MDP). The formulation of our metrics is based on the notion of bisimulation for MDPs, with an aim towards solving discounted infinite horizon…
We study upper and lower bounds on the sample-complexity of learning near-optimal behaviour in finite-state discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). For the upper bound we make the assumption that each action leads to at most two…
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is the dominant paradigm for posterior computation in Bayesian analysis. It is common to control computation time by making approximations to the Markov transition kernel. Comparatively little attention…
In this paper we provide faster algorithms for approximately solving discounted Markov Decision Processes in multiple parameter regimes. Given a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) with $|S|$ states, $|A|$ actions, discount factor…
We prove new upper and lower bounds for sample complexity of finding an $\epsilon$-optimal policy of an infinite-horizon average-reward Markov decision process (MDP) given access to a generative model. When the mixing time of the…
Many probabilistic inference problems such as stochastic filtering or the computation of rare event probabilities require model analysis under initial and terminal constraints. We propose a solution to this bridging problem for the widely…
We propose a new stochastic primal-dual optimization algorithm for planning in a large discounted Markov decision process with a generative model and linear function approximation. Assuming that the feature map approximately satisfies…
We present an algorithm for learning mixtures of Markov chains and Markov decision processes (MDPs) from short unlabeled trajectories. Specifically, our method handles mixtures of Markov chains with optional control input by going through a…
We study the approximation of a Markov chain on a reduced state space, for both discrete- and continuous-time Markov chains. In this context, we extend the existing theory of formal error bounds for the approximated transient distributions.…
We propose MDP-GapE, a new trajectory-based Monte-Carlo Tree Search algorithm for planning in a Markov Decision Process in which transitions have a finite support. We prove an upper bound on the number of calls to the generative models…
This paper considers a new approach to using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) in contexts where one may adopt multilevel (ML) Monte Carlo. The underlying problem is to approximate expectations w.r.t. an underlying probability measure that is…
This paper presents a way of solving Markov Decision Processes that combines state abstraction and temporal abstraction. Specifically, we combine state aggregation with the options framework and demonstrate that they work well together and…
The paper deals with finite-state Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights assigned to each state-action pair. New algorithms are presented to classify end components according to their limiting behavior with respect to the…
This paper discusses algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) that have monotone optimal policies. We propose a two-stage alternating convex optimization scheme that can accelerate the search for an optimal policy by…
We study the synthesis of a policy in a Markov decision process (MDP) following which an agent reaches a target state in the MDP while minimizing its total discounted cost. The problem combines a reachability criterion with a discounted…
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 studies the approximation of optimal control policies by quantized (discretized) policies for a very general class of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The problem is motivated by applications in networked control systems,…