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Reinforcement Learning (RL) has gained substantial attention across diverse application domains and theoretical investigations. Existing literature on RL theory largely focuses on risk-neutral settings where the decision-maker learns to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Zhengqi Wu , Renyuan Xu

We present an algorithm based on the \emph{Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty} (OFU) principle which is able to learn Reinforcement Learning (RL) modeled by Markov decision process (MDP) with finite state-action space efficiently. By…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-01 Zihan Zhang , Xiangyang Ji

Obtaining no-regret guarantees for reinforcement learning (RL) in the case of problems with continuous state and/or action spaces is still one of the major open challenges in the field. Recently, a variety of solutions have been proposed,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-07 Davide Maran , Alberto Maria Metelli , Matteo Papini , Marcello Restell

We consider the problem of provably optimal exploration in reinforcement learning for finite horizon MDPs. We show that an optimistic modification to value iteration achieves a regret bound of $\tilde{O}( \sqrt{HSAT} + H^2S^2A+H\sqrt{T})$…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-07-04 Mohammad Gheshlaghi Azar , Ian Osband , Rémi Munos

We study algorithms using randomized value functions for exploration in reinforcement learning. This type of algorithms enjoys appealing empirical performance. We show that when we use 1) a single random seed in each episode, and 2) a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-14 Zhihan Xiong , Ruoqi Shen , Qiwen Cui , Maryam Fazel , Simon S. Du

We derive instance-dependent tail bounds for the regret of optimism-based reinforcement learning in finite-horizon tabular Markov decision processes with unknown transition dynamics. We first study a UCBVI-type (model-based) algorithm and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-18 Sajad Khodadadian , Mehrdad Moharrami

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

We study regret minimization under privacy constraints in episodic inhomogeneous linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), motivated by the growing use of reinforcement learning (RL) in personalized decision-making systems that rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-29 Sharan Sahu

Reinforcement learning in non-stationary environments is challenging due to abrupt and unpredictable changes in dynamics, often causing traditional algorithms to fail to converge. However, in many real-world cases, non-stationarity has some…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Mohsen Amiri , Sindri Magnússon

We study the regret guarantee for risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RSRL) via distributional reinforcement learning (DRL) methods. In particular, we consider finite episodic Markov decision processes whose objective is the entropic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-26 Hao Liang , Zhi-Quan Luo

Reinforcement learning algorithms are widely used in domains where it is desirable to provide a personalized service. In these domains it is common that user data contains sensitive information that needs to be protected from third parties.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-28 Evrard Garcelon , Vianney Perchet , Ciara Pike-Burke , Matteo Pirotta

Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are one of the common ways to model safe reinforcement learning problems, where constraint functions model the safety objectives. Lagrangian-based dual or primal-dual algorithms provide…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-31 Adrian Müller , Pragnya Alatur , Giorgia Ramponi , Niao He

Recently, there has been significant progress in understanding reinforcement learning in discounted infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) by deriving tight sample complexity bounds. However, in many real-world applications, an…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-05-12 Christoph Dann , Emma Brunskill

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

We study infinite-horizon average-reward constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the weakly communicating assumption. Our contributions are twofold. First, we establish strong duality for weakly communicating average-reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Kihyun Yu , Beomhan Baek , Dabeen Lee

We consider the adversarial Markov Decision Process (MDP) problem, where the rewards for the MDP can be adversarially chosen, and the transition function can be either known or unknown. In both settings, Follow-the-PerturbedLeader (FPL)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-24 Yuanhao Wang , Kefan Dong

We present the problem of reinforcement learning with exogenous termination. We define the Termination Markov Decision Process (TerMDP), an extension of the MDP framework, in which episodes may be interrupted by an external non-Markovian…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-09 Guy Tennenholtz , Nadav Merlis , Lior Shani , Shie Mannor , Uri Shalit , Gal Chechik , Assaf Hallak , Gal Dalal

A tenet of reinforcement learning is that the agent always observes rewards. However, this is not true in many realistic settings, e.g., a human observer may not always be available to provide rewards, sensors may be limited or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Alireza Kazemipour , Simone Parisi , Matthew E. Taylor , Michael Bowling

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-07-07 Mahmoud El Chamie , Behcet Acikmese

This paper initiates the study of scale-free learning in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where the scale of rewards/losses is unknown to the learner. We design a generic algorithmic framework, \underline{S}cale \underline{C}lipping…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-05 Mingyu Chen , Xuezhou Zhang