Related papers: Model approximation in MDPs with unbounded per-ste…

Value-at-risk (VaR), also known as quantile, is a crucial risk measure in finance and other fields. However, optimizing VaR metrics in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is challenging because VaR is non-additive and the traditional dynamic…

In this work, we study algorithms for learning in infinite-horizon undiscounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) with function approximation. We first show that the regret analysis of the Politex algorithm (a version of regularized policy…

Markov reward processes (MRPs) are used to model stochastic phenomena arising in operations research, control engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence, as well as communication and transportation networks. In many of these cases,…

Many sequential decision problems can be formulated as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) where the optimal value function (or cost-to-go function) can be shown to satisfy a monotone structure in some or all of its dimensions. When the state…

We use one-step conditional risk mappings to formulate a risk averse version of a total cost problem on a controlled Markov process in discrete time infinite horizon. The nonnegative one step costs are assumed to be lower semi-continuous…

We consider the problem of local planning in fixed-horizon and discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with linear function approximation and a generative model under the assumption that the optimal action-value function lies in the…

Predictive control is frequently used for control problems involving constraints. Being an optimization based technique utilizing a user specified so-called stage cost, performance properties, i.e., bounds on the infinite horizon…

Interpretability of reinforcement learning policies is essential for many real-world tasks but learning such interpretable policies is a hard problem. Particularly rule-based policies such as decision trees and rules lists are difficult to…

We develop a regression based primal-dual martingale approach for solving finite time horizon MDPs with general state and action space. As a result, our method allows for the construction of tight upper and lower biased approximations of…

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 address the problem of finding an optimal policy in a Markov decision process under a restricted policy class defined by the convex hull of a set of base policies. This problem is of great interest in applications in which a number of…

These notes present preliminary results regarding two different approximations of linear infinite-horizon optimal control problems arising in model predictive control. Input and state trajectories are parametrized with basis functions and a…

This paper addresses the problem of planning under uncertainty in large Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Factored MDPs represent a complex state space using state variables and the transition model using a dynamic Bayesian network. This…

We introduce a class of models for multidimensional control problems which we call skip-free Markov decision processes on trees. We describe and analyse an algorithm applicable to Markov decision processes of this type that are skip-free in…

We present a method for a certain class of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that can relate the optimal policy back to one or more reward sources in the environment. For a given initial state, without fully computing the value function,…

Markov Decision Processes are classically solved using Value Iteration and Policy Iteration algorithms. Recent interest in Reinforcement Learning has motivated the study of methods inspired by optimization, such as gradient ascent. Among…

Value iteration is a fundamental algorithm for solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). It computes the maximal $n$-step payoff by iterating $n$ times a recurrence equation which is naturally associated to the MDP. At the same time, value…

We consider the problem of finding the best memoryless stochastic policy for an infinite-horizon partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) with finite state and action spaces with respect to either the discounted or mean reward…

In this paper we consider a broad class of infinite horizon discrete-time optimal control models that involve a nonnegative cost function and an affine mapping in their dynamic programming equation. They include as special cases classical…

Constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) are used as a decision-making framework to study the long-run performance of a stochastic system. It is well-known that a stationary optimal policy of a CMDP problem under discounted cost…