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This paper studies parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs), an extension to Markov decision processes (MDPs) where transitions probabilities are described by polynomials over a finite set of parameters. Fixing values for all parameters…

The distributionally robust Markov Decision Process (MDP) approach asks for a distributionally robust policy that achieves the maximal expected total reward under the most adversarial distribution of uncertain parameters. In this paper, we…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) with rewards are a widespread and well-studied model for systems that make both probabilistic and nondeterministic choices. A fundamental result about MDPs is that their minimal and maximal expected rewards…

Multi-period mean-variance optimization is a long-standing problem, caused by the failure of dynamic programming principle. This paper studies the mean-variance optimization in a setting of finite-horizon discrete-time Markov decision…

Motivated by a derandomization of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), this paper investigates deterministic random walks, which is a deterministic process analogous to a random walk. While there are several progresses on the analysis of the…

Markov decision models (MDM) used in practical applications are most often less complex than the underlying `true' MDM. The reduction of model complexity is performed for several reasons. However, it is obviously of interest to know what…

Recent decision-making systems are increasingly complicated, making it crucial to verify and understand their behavior for a given specification. A promising approach is to comprehensively explain undesired behavior in the systems modeled…

We consider finite horizon Markov decision processes under performance measures that involve both the mean and the variance of the cumulative reward. We show that either randomized or history-based policies can improve performance. We prove…

The goal of a traditional Markov decision process (MDP) is to maximize expected cumulative reward over a defined horizon (possibly infinite). In many applications, however, a decision maker may be interested in optimizing a specific…

We study variance-dependent regret bounds for Markov decision processes (MDPs). Algorithms with variance-dependent regret guarantees can automatically exploit environments with low variance (e.g., enjoying constant regret on deterministic…

This paper studies Markov Decision Processes under parameter uncertainty. We adapt the distributionally robust optimization framework, and assume that the uncertain parameters are random variables following an unknown distribution, and…

A labelled Markov decision process is a labelled Markov chain with nondeterminism, i.e., together with a strategy a labelled MDP induces a labelled Markov chain. The model is related to interval Markov chains. Motivated by applications of…

This paper studies the risk-averse mean-variance optimization in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs). The involved variance metric concerns reward variability during the whole process, and future deviations are…

In this paper we provide faster algorithms for approximately solving discounted Markov Decision Processes in multiple parameter regimes. Given a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) with $|S|$ states, $|A|$ actions, discount factor…

We consider risk-sensitive Markov decision processes (MDPs), where the MDP model is influenced by a parameter which takes values in a compact metric space. We identify sufficient conditions under which small perturbations in the model…

Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are notably more complex to solve than standard MDPs due to the absence of universally optimal policies across all initial state distributions. This necessitates re-solving the CMDP whenever the…

Multi-agent planning under stochastic dynamics is usually formalised using decentralized (partially observable) Markov decision processes ( MDPs) and reachability or expected reward specifications. In this paper, we propose a different…

Markov decision processes (MDP) are a well-established model for sequential decision-making in the presence of probabilities. In robust MDP (RMDP), every action is associated with an uncertainty set of probability distributions, modelling…

We introduce Multi-Environment Markov Decision Processes (MEMDPs) which are MDPs with a set of probabilistic transition functions. The goal in a MEMDP is to synthesize a single controller with guaranteed performances against all…

A piecewise-deterministic Markov process is a stochastic process whose behavior is governed by an ordinary differential equation punctuated by random jumps occurring at random times. We focus on the nonparametric estimation problem of the…