Related papers: Positivity-hardness results on Markov decision pro…
This note describes sufficient conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with general state and action spaces, and with weakly continuous transition probabilities, can be reduced to discounted MDPs.…
This work studies online episodic tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs) with known transitions and develops best-of-both-worlds algorithms that achieve refined data-dependent regret bounds in the adversarial regime and variance-dependent…
Given Markov chains and Markov decision processes (MDPs) whose transitions are labelled with non-negative integer costs, we study the computational complexity of deciding whether the probability of paths whose accumulated cost satisfies a…
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…
Value iteration is a well-known method of solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that is simple to implement and boasts strong theoretical convergence guarantees. However, the computational cost of value iteration quickly becomes…
We study the setting of \emph{performative reinforcement learning} where the deployed policy affects both the reward, and the transition of the underlying Markov decision process. Prior work~\parencite{MTR23} has addressed this problem…
Fueled by advances in both robust optimization theory and reinforcement learning (RL), robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) have garnered increasing attention due to their powerful capability for sequential decision-making under…
Many problems in sequential decision making and stochastic control often have natural multiscale structure: sub-tasks are assembled together to accomplish complex goals. Systematically inferring and leveraging hierarchical structure,…
Markov decision processes (MDP) are finite-state systems with both strategic and probabilistic choices. After fixing a strategy, an MDP produces a sequence of probability distributions over states. The sequence is eventually synchronizing…
We introduce a mesh-type approach for tackling discrete-time, finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) characterized by state and action spaces that are general, encompassing both finite and infinite (yet suitably regular) subsets of…
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…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are stochastic optimization problems that model situations where a decision maker controls a system based on its state. Partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are generalizations of MDPs where…
This paper presents two new approaches to decomposing and solving large Markov decision problems (MDPs), a partial decoupling method and a complete decoupling method. In these approaches, a large, stochastic decision problem is divided into…
We propose solution methods for previously-unsolved constrained MDPs in which actions can continuously modify the transition probabilities within some acceptable sets. While many methods have been proposed to solve regular MDPs with large…
Unit commitment (UC) is a fundamental problem in the day-ahead electricity market, and it is critical to solve UC problems efficiently. Mathematical optimization techniques like dynamic programming, Lagrangian relaxation, and mixed-integer…
Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) aim to handle changing or partially known system dynamics. To solve them, one typically resorts to robust optimization methods. However, this significantly increases computational complexity and…
We study online learning in constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with adversarial losses and stochastic hard constraints, under bandit feedback. We consider three scenarios. In the first one, we address general CMDPs, where we…
We study the problem of zero-delay coding for the transmission of a Markov source over a noisy channel with feedback and present a reinforcement learning solution which is guaranteed to achieve near-optimality. To this end, we formulate the…
We revisit the problem of finding optimal strategies for deterministic Markov Decision Processes (DMDPs), and a closely related problem of testing feasibility of systems of $m$ linear inequalities on $n$ real variables with at most two…
We study the problem of synthesizing a policy that maximizes the entropy of a Markov decision process (MDP) subject to a temporal logic constraint. Such a policy minimizes the predictability of the paths it generates, or dually, maximizes…