Related papers: SaVeR: Optimal Data Collection Strategy for Safe P…

In this paper, we investigate the combination of synthesis, model-based learning, and online sampling techniques to obtain safe and near-optimal schedulers for a preemptible task scheduling problem. Our algorithms can handle Markov decision…

This paper puts forward the concept that learning to take safe actions in unknown environments, even with probability one guarantees, can be achieved without the need for an unbounded number of exploratory trials. This is indeed possible,…

Engagement-optimized adaptive tutoring systems may prioritize short-term behavioral signals over sustained learning outcomes, creating structural incentives for reward hacking in reinforcement learning policies. We formalize this challenge…

In this paper, we study the problem of optimal data collection for policy evaluation in linear bandits. In policy evaluation, we are given a target policy and asked to estimate the expected reward it will obtain when executed in a…

Off-policy evaluation (OPE) estimates the value of a target treatment policy (e.g., a recommender system) using data collected by a different logging policy. It enables high-stakes experimentation without live deployment, yet in practice…

In most common settings of Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent evaluate a policy based on expectation of (discounted) sum of rewards. However in many applications this criterion might not be suitable from two perspective: first, in risk…

A data-based policy for iterative control task is presented. The proposed strategy is model-free and can be applied whenever safe input and state trajectories of a system performing an iterative task are available. These trajectories,…

In crowd labeling, a large amount of unlabeled data instances are outsourced to a crowd of workers. Workers will be paid for each label they provide, but the labeling requester usually has only a limited amount of the budget. Since data…

Motivated by wide-ranging applications such as video delivery over networks using Multiple Description Codes, congestion control, and inventory management, we study the state-tracking of a Markovian random process with a known transition…

In high-stake scenarios like medical treatment and auto-piloting, it's risky or even infeasible to collect online experimental data to train the agent. Simulation-based training can alleviate this issue, but may suffer from its inherent…

Several recent works have proposed instance-dependent upper bounds on the number of episodes needed to identify, with probability $1-\delta$, an $\varepsilon$-optimal policy in finite-horizon tabular Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). These…

Under the Markov decision process (MDP) congestion game framework, we study the problem of enforcing population distribution constraints on a population of players with stochastic dynamics and coupled congestion costs. Existing research…

We propose and study a general framework for regularized Markov decision processes (MDPs) where the goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes the expected discounted total reward plus a policy regularization term. The extant…

Designing sample-efficient and computationally feasible reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is particularly challenging in environments with large or infinite state and action spaces. In this paper, we advance this effort by presenting…

In this paper, we develop a method to automatically generate a control policy for a dynamical system modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). The control specification is given as a Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formula over a set of…

Given a set of trajectories demonstrating the execution of a task safely in a constrained MDP with observable rewards but with unknown constraints and non-observable costs, we aim to find a policy that maximizes the likelihood of…

Synthesising verifiably correct controllers for dynamical systems is crucial for safety-critical problems. To achieve this, it is important to account for uncertainty in a robust manner, while at the same time it is often of interest to…

We investigate the problem of best-policy identification in discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) when the learner has access to a generative model. The objective is to devise a learning algorithm returning the best policy as early as…

We consider the stochastic shortest path planning problem in MDPs, i.e., the problem of designing policies that ensure reaching a goal state from a given initial state with minimum accrued cost. In order to account for rare but important…

Practical reinforcement learning problems are often formulated as constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problems, in which the agent has to maximize the expected return while satisfying a set of prescribed safety constraints. In this…