Related papers: A Taste for Variety
We introduce the class of pay or play games, which captures scenarios in which each decision maker is faced with a choice between two actions: one with a fixed payoff and an- other with a payoff dependent on others' selected actions. This…
We consider POMDPs in which the weight of the stage payoff depends on the past sequence of signals and actions occurring in the infinitely repeated problem. We prove that for all epsilon>0, there exists a strategy that is epsilon-optimal…
We study countably infinite Markov decision processes (MDPs) with real-valued transition rewards. Every infinite run induces the following sequences of payoffs: 1. Point payoff (the sequence of directly seen transition rewards), 2. Total…
We consider a stochastic differential equation that is controlled by means of an additive finite-variation process. A singular stochastic controller, who is a minimizer, determines this finite-variation process, while a discretionary…
In several standard models of dynamic programming (gambling houses, MDPs, POMDPs), we prove the existence of a very robust notion of value for the infinitely repeated problem, namely the pathwise uniform value. This solves two open…
We consider a non-stationary variant of a sequential stochastic optimization problem, in which the underlying cost functions may change along the horizon. We propose a measure, termed variation budget, that controls the extent of said…
A sequential decision-making agent balances between exploring to gain new knowledge about an environment and exploiting current knowledge to maximize immediate reward. For environments studied in the traditional literature, optimal…
We study the problem of a planner who resolves risk-return trade-offs - like financial investment decisions - on behalf of a collective of agents with heterogeneous risk preferences. The planner's objective is a two-stage utility functional…
What payoffs are positionally determined for deterministic two-player antagonistic games on finite directed graphs? In this paper we study this question for payoffs that are continuous. The main reason why continuous positionally determined…
We consider a situation where an agent has $T$ ressources to be allocated to a larger number $N$ of actions. Each action can be completed at most once and results in a stochastic reward with unknown mean. The goal of the agent is to…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit setting has been recently studied in the non-stationary regime, where the mean payoff of each action is a non-decreasing function of the number of rounds passed since it was last played. This model captures…
Motivated by applications where impatience is pervasive and evaluation times are uncertain, we study a selection model where options may expire at an unknown point in time and evaluation times are stochastic. Initially, the decision-maker…
In a zero-sum stochastic game, at each stage, two adversary players take decisions and receive a stage payoff determined by them and by a controlled random variable representing the state of nature. The total payoff is the normalized…
We study online resource allocation under non-stationary demand with a minimum offline data requirement. In this problem, a decision-maker must allocate multiple types of resources to sequentially arriving queries over a finite horizon.…
Bayesian decision theory outlines a rigorous framework for making optimal decisions based on maximizing expected utility over a model posterior. However, practitioners often do not have access to the full posterior and resort to approximate…
We consider zero-sum stochastic games with perfect information and finitely many states and actions. The payoff is computed by a function which associates to each infinite sequence of states and actions a real number. We prove that if the…
This paper studies a sequential decision problem where payoff distributions are known and where the riskiness of payoffs matters. Equivalently, it studies sequential choice from a repeated set of independent lotteries. The decision-maker is…
We model the joint distribution of choice probabilities and decision times in binary choice tasks as the solution to a problem of optimal sequential sampling, where the agent is uncertain of the utility of each action and pays a constant…
In multi-objective optimization, a single decision vector must balance the trade-offs between many objectives. Solutions achieving an optimal trade-off are said to be Pareto optimal: these are decision vectors for which improving any one…
We consider multiplayer stochastic games in which the payoff of each player is a bounded and Borel-measurable function of the infinite play. By using a generalization of the technique of Martin (1998) and Maitra and Sudderth (1998), we show…