Related papers: Reversible Markov decision processes and the Gauss…
What are the functionals of the reward that can be computed and optimized exactly in Markov Decision Processes?In the finite-horizon, undiscounted setting, Dynamic Programming (DP) can only handle these operations efficiently for certain…
Models of many real-life applications, such as queuing models of communication networks or computing systems, have a countably infinite state-space. Algorithmic and learning procedures that have been developed to produce optimal policies…
This paper deals with unconstrained discounted continuous-time Markov decision processes in Borel state and action spaces. Under some conditions imposed on the primitives, allowing unbounded transition rates and unbounded (from both above…
We propose a comprehensive framework for policy gradient methods tailored to continuous time reinforcement learning. This is based on the connection between stochastic control problems and randomised problems, enabling applications across…
Classical linear regression is considered for a case when regression parameters depend on the external random environment. The last is described as a continuous time Markov chain with finite state space. Here the expected sojourn times in…
In this paper, we consider the problem of optimization and learning for constrained and multi-objective Markov decision processes, for both discounted rewards and expected average rewards. We formulate the problems as zero-sum games where…
In this paper, we study a continuous-time discounted jump Markov decision process with both controlled actions and observations. The observation is only available for a discrete set of time instances. At each time of observation, one has to…
This paper presents a new condition for the existence of optimal stationary policies in average-cost continuous-time Markov decision processes with unbounded cost and transition rates, arising from controlled queueing systems. This…
This paper investigates a class of optimal control problems associated with Markov processes with local state information. The decision-maker has only local access to a subset of a state vector information as often encountered in…
We establish a connection between policy evaluation in Markov decision processes and PageRank in network analysis. For a fixed policy, we show that the value function of a discounted Markov decision process can be obtained, up to an…
We present a convex-concave reformulation of the reversible Markov chain estimation problem and outline an efficient numerical scheme for the solution of the resulting problem based on a primal-dual interior point method for monotone…
The article poses a general model for optimal control subject to information constraints, motivated in part by recent work of Sims and others on information-constrained decision-making by economic agents. In the average-cost optimal control…
In this paper, we consider a large class of constrained non-cooperative stochastic Markov games with countable state spaces and discounted cost criteria. In one-player case, i.e., constrained discounted Markov decision models, it is…
We consider a class of stochastic dynamical systems, called piecewise deterministic Markov processes, with states $(x, \s)\in \O\times \G$, $\O$ being a region in $\bbR^d$ or the $d$--dimensional torus, $\G$ being a finite set. The…
In this paper, we study the distributionally robust joint chance constrained Markov decision process. {Utilizing the logarithmic transformation technique,} we derive its deterministic reformulation with bi-convex terms under the…
This paper first describes a class of uncertain stochastic control systems with Markovian switching, and derives an It\^o-Liu formula for Markov-modulated processes. And we characterize an optimal control law, which satisfies the…
Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…
We consider a control problem for a finite-state Markov system whose performance is evaluated by a coherent Markov risk measure. For each policy, the risk of a state is approximated by a function of its features, thus leading to a…
The linear response of a dynamical system refers to changes to properties of the system when small external perturbations are applied. We consider the little-studied question of selecting an optimal perturbation so as to (i) maximise the…
We consider a Markov control model in discrete time with countable both state space and action space. Using the value function of a suitable long-run average reward problem, we study various reachability/controllability problems. First, we…