Related papers: Transience in Countable MDPs
We consider Markov decision processes (MDP) as generators of sequences of probability distributions over states. A probability distribution is p-synchronizing if the probability mass is at least p in a single state, or in a given set of…
We study countably infinite stochastic 2-player games with reachability objectives. Our results provide a complete picture of the memory requirements of $\varepsilon$-optimal (resp. optimal) strategies. These results depend on the size of…
We consider an exhaustive polling system with three nodes in its transient regime under a switching rule of generalized greedy type. We show that, for the system with Poisson arrivals and service times with finite second moment, the…
This paper studies parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs), an extension to Markov decision processes (MDPs) where transitions probabilities are described by polynomials over a finite set of parameters. Fixing values for all parameters…
Recent research in decision theoretic planning has focussed on making the solution of Markov decision processes (MDPs) more feasible. We develop a family of algorithms for structured reachability analysis of MDPs that are suitable when an…
We establish the existence of optimal scheduling strategies for time-bounded reachability in continuous-time Markov decision processes, and of co-optimal strategies for continuous-time Markov games. Furthermore, we show that optimal control…
We consider synchronizing properties of Markov decision processes (MDP), viewed as generators of sequences of probability distributions over states. A probability distribution is p-synchronizing if the probability mass is at least p in some…
We introduce the concept of a deterministic walk in a deterministic environment on a countable state space (DWDE). For the deterministic walk in a fixed environment we establish properties analogous to those found in Markov chain theory,…
We present a new geometric interpretation of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with a natural normalization procedure that allows us to adjust the value function at each state without altering the advantage of any action with respect to any…
Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are a fundamental framework for decision-making under uncertainty and partial observability. Since in general optimal policies may require infinite memory, they are hard to implement…
Interval Markov decision processes (IMDPs) generalise classical MDPs by having interval-valued transition probabilities. They provide a powerful modelling tool for probabilistic systems with an additional variation or uncertainty that…
We present a method for a certain class of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that can relate the optimal policy back to one or more reward sources in the environment. For a given initial state, without fully computing the value function,…
This paper considers an infinite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) that allows for general non-exponential discount functions, in both discrete and continuous time. Due to the inherent time inconsistency, we look for a randomized…
We consider distribution-based objectives for Markov Decision Processes (MDP). This class of objectives gives rise to an interesting trade-off between full and partial information. As in full observation, the strategy in the MDP can depend…
We consider two-player stochastic games played on a finite graph for infinitely many rounds. Stochastic games generalize both Markov decision processes (MDP) by adding an adversary player, and two-player deterministic games by adding…
The concept of intransitiveness for games, which is the condition for which there is no first-player winning strategy can arise surprisingly, as happens in the Penney game, an extension of the heads or tails. Since a game can be converted…
Policy Iteration (PI) is a widely used family of algorithms to compute optimal policies for Markov Decision Problems (MDPs). We derive upper bounds on the running time of PI on Deterministic MDPs (DMDPs): the class of MDPs in which every…
We are interested in the analysis of very large continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) with many distinct rates. Such models arise naturally in the context of reliability analysis, e.g., of computer network performability analysis, of power…
A decade ago, Abdulla, Ben Henda and Mayr introduced the elegant concept of decisiveness for denumerable Markov chains [1]. Roughly speaking, decisiveness allows one to lift most good properties from finite Markov chains to denumerable…
We study non-rectangular robust Markov decision processes under the average-reward criterion, where the ambiguity set couples transition probabilities across states and the adversary commits to a stationary kernel for the entire horizon. We…