Related papers: Decision-Dependent Distributionally Robust Markov …

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) have attracted significant interest due to their ability to protect MDPs from poor out-of-sample performance in the presence of ambiguity. In contrast to classical MDPs, which account for…

Moving Target Defense (MTD) is an emerging game-changing defense strategy in cybersecurity with the goal of strengthening defenders and conversely puzzling adversaries in a network environment. The successful deployment of an MTD system can…

We study infinite-horizon robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) on continuous state spaces with structured rectangular ambiguity set. The proposed ambiguity set falls within the convex hull of unknown generating kernels. We utilize the…

We establish a collection of closed-loop guarantees and propose a scalable optimization algorithm for distributionally robust model predictive control (DRMPC) applied to linear systems, convex constraints, and quadratic costs. Via standard…

We propose a system theoretic approach to select and stabilize the endemic equilibrium of an SIRS epidemic model in which the decisions of a population of strategically interacting agents determine the transmission rate. Specifically, the…

In performative stochastic optimization, decisions can influence the distribution of random parameters, rendering the data-generating process itself decision-dependent. In practice, decision-makers rarely have access to the true…

We consider the control of a Markov decision process (MDP) that undergoes an abrupt change in its transition kernel (mode). We formulate the problem of minimizing regret under control-switching based on mode change detection, compared to a…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) provide a standard framework for sequential decision making under uncertainty. However, MDPs do not take uncertainty in transition probabilities into account. Robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) address…

We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) in which the transition probabilities and rewards belong to an uncertainty set parametrized by a collection of random variables. The probability distributions for these random parameters are…

We introduce a distributional method for learning the optimal policy in risk averse Markov decision process with finite state action spaces, latent costs, and stationary dynamics. We assume sequential observations of states, actions, and…

Distributionally Robust Optimization (DRO), which aims to find an optimal decision that minimizes the worst case cost over the ambiguity set of probability distribution, has been widely applied in diverse applications, e.g., network…

We consider the problem of optimizing locations of distribution centers (DCs) and plans for distributing resources such as test kits and vaccines, under spatiotemporal uncertainties of disease spread and demand for the resources. We aim to…

Efficient contact tracing and isolation is an effective strategy to control epidemics. It was used effectively during the Ebola epidemic and successfully implemented in several parts of the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. An…

This study develops and analyzes an extended Susceptible, Infected, Hospitalized and Recovered (SIHR) model incorporating time dependent control functions to capture preventive measures (e.g., distancing, mask use) and resource limited…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a popular model for performance analysis and optimization of stochastic systems. The parameters of stochastic behavior of MDPs are estimates from empirical observations of a system; their values are not…

Autonomous agents are limited in their ability to observe the world state. Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) formally model the problem of planning under world state uncertainty, but POMDPs with continuous actions and…

We investigate online Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with adversarially changing loss functions and known transitions. We choose dynamic regret as the performance measure, defined as the performance difference between the learner and any…

In this paper we model basketball plays as episodes from team-specific non-stationary Markov decision processes (MDPs) with shot clock dependent transition probabilities. Bayesian hierarchical models are employed in the modeling and…

We study the relation between different Markov Decision Process (MDP) frameworks in the machine learning and econometrics literatures, including the standard MDP, the entropy and general regularized MDP, and stochastic MDP, where the latter…

Many countries have experienced at least two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second wave is far more dangerous as distinct strains appear more harmful to human health, but it stems from the complacency about the first wave. This paper…