Related papers: A Dual Approach to Constrained Markov Decision Pro…

Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise in performing complex multi-step reasoning, yet they continue to struggle with mathematical reasoning, often making systematic errors. A promising solution is reinforcement learning (RL)…

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,…

We study a finite time horizon Markov decision process (MDP) consisting of several groups of multi-action finite-state restless bandit processes, which are identical within each group. The bandit processes into different groups can be…

Regularized Markov Decision Processes serve as models of sequential decision making under uncertainty wherein the decision maker has limited information processing capacity and/or aversion to model ambiguity. With functional approximation,…

Optimal policies in Markov decision processes (MDPs) are very sensitive to model misspecification. This raises serious concerns about deploying them in high-stake domains. Robust MDPs (RMDP) provide a promising framework to mitigate…

Designing a safe policy for uncertain environments is crucial in real-world control systems. However, this challenge remains inadequately addressed within the Markov decision process (MDP) framework. This paper presents the first algorithm…

We consider infinite-horizon $\gamma$-discounted (linear) constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) where the objective is to find a policy that maximizes the expected cumulative reward subject to expected cumulative constraints. Given…

It was recently shown that dynamic programming (DP) methods for finding static CVaR-optimal policies in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) can fail when based on the dual formulation, yet the root cause of this failure remains unclear. We…

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…

We present a method for solving implicit (factored) Markov decision processes (MDPs) with very large state spaces. We introduce a property of state space partitions which we call epsilon-homogeneity. Intuitively, an epsilon-homogeneous…

In this paper, we study the maximum entropy sampling problem (MESP) and its variants. MESP seeks to identify a small subset of variables that maximizes the determinant of a covariance submatrix, and is a fundamental model in optimal…

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…

With the widespread adoption of machine learning systems, the need to curtail their behavior has become increasingly apparent. This is evidenced by recent advancements towards developing models that satisfy robustness, safety, and fairness…

In Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with intermittent state information, decision-making becomes challenging due to periods of missing observations. Linear programming (LP) methods can play a crucial role in solving MDPs, in particular,…

This note summarizes the optimization formulations used in the study of Markov decision processes. We consider both the discounted and undiscounted processes under the standard and the entropy-regularized settings. For each setting, we…

Risk-sensitive planning aims to identify policies maximizing some tail-focused metrics in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Such an optimization task can be very costly for the most widely used and interpretable metrics such as threshold…

We present a general framework for applying machine-learning algorithms to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of these techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive exploration of the…

Dynamic optimization of mean and variance in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is a long-standing challenge caused by the failure of dynamic programming. In this paper, we propose a new approach to find the globally optimal policy for…

We consider the problem of computing minimum and maximum probabilities of satisfying an $\omega$-regular property in a bounded-parameter Markov decision process (BMDP). BMDP arise from Markov decision processes (MDP) by allowing for…

This paper considers smooth convex optimization problems with many functional constraints. To solve this general class of problems we propose a new stochastic perturbed augmented Lagrangian method, called SGDPA, where a perturbation is…