Related papers: Bounds for Synchronizing Markov Decision Processes
In this paper, we consider algorithms to decide the existence of strategies in MDPs for Boolean combinations of objectives. These objectives are omega-regular properties that need to be enforced either surely, almost surely, existentially,…
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 Markov decision processes and turn-based stochastic games with parity conditions. There are three qualitative winning criteria, namely, sure winning, which requires all paths must satisfy the condition, almost-sure winning, which…
Often one has a preference order among the different systems that satisfy a given specification. Under a probabilistic assumption about the possible inputs, such a preference order is naturally expressed by a weighted automaton, which…
We consider partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with a set of target states and every transition is associated with an integer cost. The optimization objective we study asks to minimize the expected total cost till the…
We consider finite horizon Markov decision processes under performance measures that involve both the mean and the variance of the cumulative reward. We show that either randomized or history-based policies can improve performance. We prove…
This paper deals with three major types of convergence of probability measures on metric spaces: weak convergence, setwise converges, and convergence in the total variation. First, it describes and compares necessary and sufficient…
In the context of Markov decision processes running in continuous time, one of the most intriguing challenges is the efficient approximation of finite horizon reachability objectives. A multitude of sophisticated model checking algorithms…
We consider two important time scales---the Markov and cryptic orders---that monitor how an observer synchronizes to a finitary stochastic process. We show how to compute these orders exactly and that they are most efficiently calculated…
We consider a discrete-time Markov decision process with Borel state and action spaces. The performance criterion is to maximize a total expected {utility determined by unbounded return function. It is shown the existence of optimal…
Consider a complete communication network of $n$ nodes, where the nodes receive a common clock pulse. We study the synchronous $c$-counting problem: given any starting state and up to $f$ faulty nodes with arbitrary behaviour, the task is…
We consider partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with {\omega}-regular conditions specified as parity objectives. The class of {\omega}-regular languages extends regular languages to infinite strings and provides a robust…
In the Markov decision process model, policies are usually evaluated by expected cumulative rewards. As this decision criterion is not always suitable, we propose in this paper an algorithm for computing a policy optimal for the quantile…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (or minimize…
We study Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a countably infinite number of states. The $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) threshold objective is to maximize the probability that the $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) of the infinite sequence of…
We consider lexicographic bi-objective problems on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where we optimize one objective while guaranteeing optimality of another. We propose a two-stage technique for solving such problems when the objectives…
The synthesis problem for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is to compute a policy that satisfies a given specification. Such policies have to take the full execution history of a POMDP into account, rendering the…
An important question for a probabilistic program is whether the probability mass of all its diverging runs is zero, that is that it terminates "almost surely". Proving that can be hard, and this paper presents a new method for doing so; it…
Recently two approximate Newton methods were proposed for the optimisation of Markov Decision Processes. While these methods were shown to have desirable properties, such as a guarantee that the preconditioner is negative-semidefinite when…
We consider the problem of minimizing a certainty equivalent of the total or discounted cost over a finite and an infinite time horizon which is generated by a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP). The certainty equivalent…