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This paper studies temporal planning in probabilistic environments, modeled as labeled Markov decision processes (MDPs), with user preferences over multiple temporal goals. Existing works reflect such preferences as a prioritized list of…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2023-04-25 Lening Li , Hazhar Rahmani , Jie Fu

We study policy optimization problems for deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) with metric state and action spaces, which we refer to as Metric Policy Optimization Problems (MPOPs). Our goal is to establish theoretical results on…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-07-14 Victor D. Dorobantu , Kamyar Azizzadenesheli , Yisong Yue

The question of knowing whether the policy Iteration algorithm (PI) for solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) has exponential or (strongly) polynomial complexity has attracted much attention in the last 50 years. Recently, Fearnley…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2011-08-19 Romain Hollanders , Jean-Charles Delvenne , Raphaël Jungers

Markov Decision Processes (Mdps) form a versatile framework used to model a wide range of optimization problems. The Mdp model consists of sets of states, actions, time steps, rewards, and probability transitions. When in a given state and…

Markov decision process over vector addition system with states (VASS MDP) is a finite state model combining non-deterministic and probabilistic behavior, augmented with non-negative integer counters that can be incremented or decremented…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-03-10 Michal Ajdarów

We introduce the notion of quantum Markov decision process (qMDP) as a semantic model of nondeterministic and concurrent quantum programs. It is shown by examples that qMDPs can be used in analysis of quantum algorithms and protocols. We…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-07-10 Shenggang Ying , Mingsheng Ying

It is well known that for any finite state Markov decision process (MDP) there is a memoryless deterministic policy that maximizes the expected reward. For partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), optimal memoryless policies…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-02-16 Guido Montufar , Keyan Ghazi-Zahedi , Nihat Ay

Discrete-time Markov Chains (MCs) and Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are two standard formalisms in system analysis. Their main associated quantitative objectives are hitting probabilities, discounted sum, and mean payoff. Although there…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-04-21 Ali Asadi , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Amir Kafshdar Goharshady , Kiarash Mohammadi , Andreas Pavlogiannis

In the optimization of dynamical systems, the variables typically have constraints. Such problems can be modeled as a constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP). This paper considers a model-free approach to the problem, where the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-02 Qinbo Bai , Vaneet Aggarwal , Ather Gattami

We study the problem of policy synthesis for uncertain partially observable Markov decision processes (uPOMDPs). The transition probability function of uPOMDPs is only known to belong to a so-called uncertainty set, for instance in the form…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-01-24 Marnix Suilen , Nils Jansen , Murat Cubuktepe , Ufuk Topcu

We study reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the finite-horizon episodic setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, the inter-transition times of a continuous-time MDP are exponentially…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-04 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou

Markov Decision Problems (MDPs) provide a foundational framework for modelling sequential decision-making across diverse domains, guided by optimality criteria such as discounted and average rewards. However, these criteria have inherent…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-26 Dibyangshu Mukherjee , Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan

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…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-12-02 Hugo Gilbert , Paul Weng , Yan Xu

We address the challenge of quantifying Bayesian uncertainty and incorporating it in offline use cases of finite-state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with unknown dynamics. Our approach provides a principled method to disentangle…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-05 Filippo Valdettaro , A. Aldo Faisal

This paper studies the expected value of multiplicative rewards, where rewards obtained in each step are multiplied (instead of the usual addition), in Markov chains (MCs) and Markov decision processes (MDPs). One of the key differences to…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Christel Baier , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Tobias Meggendorfer , Jakob Piribauer

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…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2013-09-12 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Martin Chmelik , Mathieu Tracol

We study the evaluation of a policy under best- and worst-case perturbations to a Markov decision process (MDP), using transition observations from the original MDP, whether they are generated under the same or a different policy. This is…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Andrew Bennett , Nathan Kallus , Miruna Oprescu , Wen Sun , Kaiwen Wang

Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are notably more complex to solve than standard MDPs due to the absence of universally optimal policies across all initial state distributions. This necessitates re-solving the CMDP whenever the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-02 Alperen Tercan , Necmiye Ozay

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a flexible representation for real-world decision and control problems. However, POMDPs are notoriously difficult to solve, especially when the state and observation spaces are…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-10-20 Michael H. Lim , Tyler J. Becker , Mykel J. Kochenderfer , Claire J. Tomlin , Zachary N. Sunberg

Markov decision processes (MDP) are useful to model optimisation problems in concurrent systems. To verify MDPs with efficient Monte Carlo techniques requires that their nondeterminism be resolved by a scheduler. Recent work has introduced…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2016-11-15 Pedro D'Argenio , Axel Legay , Sean Sedwards , Louis-Marie Traonouez