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Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a mathematical framework for modeling sequential decision making under uncertainty. The classical approaches for solving MDPs are well known and have been widely studied, some of which rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-18 Joshua R. Bertram , Xuxi Yang , Peng Wei

We study online learning of finite Markov decision process (MDP) problems when a side information vector is available. The problem is motivated by applications such as clinical trials, recommendation systems, etc. Such applications have an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-06-27 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Gergely Neu

We consider episodic reinforcement learning in reward-mixing Markov decision processes (RMMDPs): at the beginning of every episode nature randomly picks a latent reward model among $M$ candidates and an agent interacts with the MDP…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-07 Jeongyeol Kwon , Yonathan Efroni , Constantine Caramanis , Shie Mannor

In many sequential decision-making problems, the goal is to optimize a utility function while satisfying a set of constraints on different utilities. This learning problem is formalized through Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs).…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-05 Yonathan Efroni , Shie Mannor , Matteo Pirotta

This paper studies constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with constraints against stochastic thresholds, aiming at safety of reinforcement learning in unknown and uncertain environments. We leverage a Growing-Window estimator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-25 Qian Zuo , Fengxiang He

We consider discounted infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), where the goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes the expected cumulative reward while satisfying expected cumulative constraints. Motivated by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-04 Tingting Ni , Maryam Kamgarpour

We consider the problem of learning in adversarial Markov decision processes [MDPs] with an oblivious adversary in a full-information setting. The agent interacts with an environment during $T$ episodes, each of which consists of $H$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-06 Daniil Tiapkin , Evgenii Chzhen , Gilles Stoltz

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

Rather than augmenting rewards with penalties for undesired behavior, Constrained Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (CPOMDPs) plan safely by imposing inviolable hard constraint value budgets. Previous work performing online…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-12-26 Arec Jamgochian , Anthony Corso , Mykel J. Kochenderfer

We consider an online learning problem where the learner interacts with a Markov decision process in a sequence of episodes, where the reward function is allowed to change between episodes in an adversarial manner and the learner only gets…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-15 Gergely Neu , Julia Olkhovskaya

Most reinforcement learning methods are based upon the key assumption that the transition dynamics and reward functions are fixed, that is, the underlying Markov decision process is stationary. However, in many real-world applications, this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-23 Yash Chandak , Georgios Theocharous , Shiv Shankar , Martha White , Sridhar Mahadevan , Philip S. Thomas

We consider the reinforcement learning problem for the constrained Markov decision process (CMDP), which plays a central role in satisfying safety or resource constraints in sequential learning and decision-making. In this problem, we are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-19 Jiashuo Jiang , Yinyu Ye

We study policy optimization in an infinite horizon, $\gamma$-discounted constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Our objective is to return a policy that achieves large expected reward with a small constraint violation. We consider the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-12 Arushi Jain , Sharan Vaswani , Reza Babanezhad , Csaba Szepesvari , Doina Precup

Safety is a fundamental challenge in reinforcement learning (RL), particularly in real-world applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, and healthcare. To address this, Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are commonly used…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-18 Chang Liu , Yunfan Li , Lin F. Yang

In the reinforcement learning literature, there are many algorithms developed for either Contextual Bandit (CB) or Markov Decision Processes (MDP) environments. However, when deploying reinforcement learning algorithms in the real world,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-02 Kelly W. Zhang , Omer Gottesman , Finale Doshi-Velez

We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-07-25 Shuchi Chawla , Dimitris Christou , Amit Harlev , Ziv Scully

The wide popularity of short videos on social media poses new opportunities and challenges to optimize recommender systems on the video-sharing platforms. Users provide complex and multi-faceted responses towards recommendations, including…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-27 Qingpeng Cai , Ruohan Zhan , Chi Zhang , Jie Zheng , Guangwei Ding , Pinghua Gong , Dong Zheng , Peng Jiang

We consider online learning in episodic loop-free Markov decision processes (MDPs), where the loss function can change arbitrarily between episodes, and the transition function is not known to the learner. We show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-21 Aviv Rosenberg , Yishay Mansour

The problem of offline reinforcement learning focuses on learning a good policy from a log of environment interactions. Past efforts for developing algorithms in this area have revolved around introducing constraints to online reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-27 Ian Char , Viraj Mehta , Adam Villaflor , John M. Dolan , Jeff Schneider

Safe reinforcement learning has been a promising approach for optimizing the policy of an agent that operates in safety-critical applications. In this paper, we propose an algorithm, SNO-MDP, that explores and optimizes Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-18 Akifumi Wachi , Yanan Sui