English
Related papers

Related papers: Robustness to Modeling Errors in Risk-Sensitive Ma…

200 papers

In many practical sequential decision-making problems, tracking the state of the environment incurs a sensing/communication/computation cost. In these settings, the agent's interaction with its environment includes the additional component…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-16 Vansh Kapoor , Jayakrishnan Nair

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a formal framework for modeling and solving sequential decision-making problems. In finite-time horizons such problems are relevant for instance for optimal stopping or specific supply chain problems,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-07 Sara Klein , Simon Weissmann , Leif Döring

We are interested in risk constraints for infinite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes (MDPs). Starting with average reward MDPs, we show that increasing concave stochastic dominance constraints on the empirical distribution of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-06-21 William B. Haskell , Rahul Jain

We study the problem of learning policies that maximize cumulative reward while satisfying safety constraints, even when the real environment differs from a simulator or nominal model. We focus on robust constrained Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Sourav Ganguly , Arnob Ghosh

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are an effective way to formally describe many Machine Learning problems. In fact, recently MDPs have also emerged as a powerful framework to model financial trading tasks. For example, financial MDPs can…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2021-07-21 Diego Pino , Javier García , Fernando Fernández , Svitlana S Vyetrenko

The Markov decision process (MDP) formulation used to model many real-world sequential decision making problems does not efficiently capture the setting where the set of available decisions (actions) at each time step is stochastic.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-22 Yash Chandak , Georgios Theocharous , Blossom Metevier , Philip S. Thomas

Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the policy employed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. The analytical formulation usually takes the form of a Constrained Markov Decision Process…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-03 Aria HasanzadeZonuzy , Archana Bura , Dileep Kalathil , Srinivas Shakkottai

In this work, we study the problem of actively classifying the attributes of dynamical systems characterized as a finite set of Markov decision process (MDP) models. We are interested in finding strategies that actively interact with the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-06 Bo Wu , Niklas Lauffer , Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Suda Bharadwaj , Zhe Xu , Ufuk Topcu

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…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-04-03 Tobias Winkler , Sebastian Junges , Guillermo A. Pérez , Joost-Pieter Katoen

In most applications of model-based Markov decision processes, the parameters for the unknown underlying model are often estimated from the empirical data. Due to noise, the policy learnedfrom the estimated model is often far from the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-22 Samarth Gupta , Daniel N. Hill , Lexing Ying , Inderjit Dhillon

Sequential decisions in volatile, high-stakes settings require more than maximizing expected return; they require principled uncertainty management. This paper presents the Uncertainty-Aware Markov Decision Process (UAMDP), a unified…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 Michal Koren , Or Peretz , Tai Dinh , Philip S. Yu

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model a wide variety of applications ranging from game playing over robotics to finance. Their optimal policy typically maximizes the expected sum of rewards given at each step of the decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-26 Maximilian Nägele , Jan Olle , Thomas Fösel , Remmy Zen , Florian Marquardt

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are widely used in modeling decision making problems in stochastic environments. However, precise specification of the reward functions in MDPs is often very difficult. Recent approaches have focused on…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2012-02-20 Eunsoo Oh , Kee-Eung Kim

We introduce and study constrained Markov Decision Processes (cMDPs) with anytime constraints. An anytime constraint requires the agent to never violate its budget at any point in time, almost surely. Although Markovian policies are no…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-14 Jeremy McMahan , Xiaojin Zhu

We present some hardness results on finding the optimal policy for the static formulation of distributionally robust Markov decision processes. We construct problem instances such that when the considered policy class is Markovian and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-08 Yan Li

This article presents the complexity of reachability decision problems for parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs), an extension to Markov decision processes (MDPs) where transitions probabilities are described by polynomials over a…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2020-09-29 Sebastian Junges , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Guillermo A. Pérez , Tobias Winkler

We study a class of multi-stage stochastic programs, which incorporate modeling features from Markov decision processes (MDPs). This class includes structured MDPs with continuous action and state spaces. We extend policy graphs to include…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-09 David P. Morton , Oscar Dowson , Bernardo K. Pagnoncelli

We consider the problem of statistical inference in a parametric finite Markov chain model and develop a robust estimator of the parameters defining the transition probabilities via minimization of a suitable (empirical) version of the…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-03-23 Abhik Ghosh

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are widely used for modeling decision-making problems in robotics, automated control, and economics. Traditional MDPs assume that the decision maker (DM) knows all states and actions. However, this may not…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-07-29 Joseph Y. Halpern , Nan Rong , Ashutosh Saxena

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are widely used for modeling decision-making problems in robotics, automated control, and economics. Traditional MDPs assume that the decision maker (DM) knows all states and actions. However, this may not…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2010-06-14 Joseph Y. Halpern , Nan Rong , Ashutosh Saxena