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In this article we consider risk-sensitive control of semi-Markov processes with a discrete state space. We consider general utility functions and discounted cost in the optimization criteria. We consider random finite horizon and infinite…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-01-13 Arnab Bhabak , Subhamay Saha

Policy gradient methods are reinforcement learning algorithms that adapt a parameterized policy by following a performance gradient estimate. Conventional policy gradient methods use Monte-Carlo techniques to estimate the gradient, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Yaakov Engel , Michal Valko

On error of value function inevitably causes an overestimation phenomenon and has a negative impact on the convergence of the algorithms. To mitigate the negative effects of the approximation error, we propose Error Controlled Actor-critic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-08 Xingen Gao , Fei Chao , Changle Zhou , Zhen Ge , Chih-Min Lin , Longzhi Yang , Xiang Chang , Changjing Shang

Optimization of parameterized policies for reinforcement learning (RL) is an important and challenging problem in artificial intelligence. Among the most common approaches are algorithms based on gradient ascent of a score function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-15 Sriram Srinivasan , Marc Lanctot , Vinicius Zambaldi , Julien Perolat , Karl Tuyls , Remi Munos , Michael Bowling

We present on-line policy gradient algorithms for computing the locally optimal policy of a constrained, average cost, finite state Markov Decision Process. The stochastic approximation algorithms require estimation of the gradient of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-12-18 Vikram Krishnamurthy , Felisa Vazquez Abad

Motivated by many application problems, we consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a general loss function and unknown parameters. To mitigate the epistemic uncertainty associated with unknown parameters, we take a Bayesian approach…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-02 Xiaoshuang Wang , Yifan Lin , Enlu Zhou

Motivated by applications in risk-sensitive reinforcement learning, we study mean-variance optimization in a discounted reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). Specifically, we analyze a Temporal Difference (TD) learning algorithm with linear…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-13 Tejaram Sangadi , L. A. Prashanth , Krishna Jagannathan

Whereas classical Markov decision processes maximize the expected reward, we consider minimizing the risk. We propose to evaluate the risk associated to a given policy over a long-enough time horizon with the help of a central limit…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-12-03 Pengqian Yu , Jia Yuan Yu , Huan Xu

We present an elementary state augmentation method for a class of static risk measure applied to the total cost for both Markov decision processes and stochastic optimal control, such that dynamic programming equations can be derived on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-07 Cristian Chávez , Yan Li

In this paper we study a class of risk-sensitive Markovian control problems in discrete time subject to model uncertainty. We consider a risk-sensitive discounted cost criterion with finite time horizon. The used methodology is the one of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-04-15 Tomasz R. Bielecki , Tao Chen , Igor Cialenco

Euclidean Markov decision processes are a powerful tool for modeling control problems under uncertainty over continuous domains. Finite state imprecise, Markov decision processes can be used to approximate the behavior of these infinite…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-06-29 Manfred Jaeger , Giorgio Bacci , Giovanni Bacci , Kim Guldstrand Larsen , Peter Gjøl Jensen

We introduce a class of networked Markov potential games in which agents are associated with nodes in a network. Each agent has its own local potential function, and the reward of each agent depends only on the states and actions of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-11 Zhaoyi Zhou , Zaiwei Chen , Yiheng Lin , Adam Wierman

Optimizing dynamic risk with stochastic policies is challenging in both policy updates and value learning. The former typically requires transition perturbation, while the latter may rely on model-based approaches. To address these…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Yudong Luo , Erick Delage

Markov games provide a powerful framework for modeling strategic multi-agent interactions in dynamic environments. Traditionally, convergence properties of decentralized learning algorithms in these settings have been established only for…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-06-13 Chinmay Maheshwari , Manxi Wu , Shankar Sastry

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has gained substantial attention across diverse application domains and theoretical investigations. Existing literature on RL theory largely focuses on risk-neutral settings where the decision-maker learns to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Zhengqi Wu , Renyuan Xu

This paper investigates the two-person zero-sum stochastic games for piece-wise deterministic Markov decision processes with risk-sensitive finite-horizon cost criterion on a general state space. Here, the transition and cost/reward rates…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-15 Subrata Golui

We develop a stochastic approximation-type algorithm to solve finite state/action, infinite-horizon, risk-aware Markov decision processes. Our algorithm has two loops. The inner loop computes the risk by solving a stochastic saddle-point…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-05 Wenjie Huang , William B. Haskell

In many sequential decision-making problems one is interested in minimizing an expected cumulative cost while taking into account \emph{risk}, i.e., increased awareness of events of small probability and high consequences. Accordingly, the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-04-07 Yinlam Chow , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Lucas Janson , Marco Pavone

Actor-critic style two-time-scale algorithms are one of the most popular methods in reinforcement learning, and have seen great empirical success. However, their performance is not completely understood theoretically. In this paper, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-22 Sajad Khodadadian , Thinh T. Doan , Justin Romberg , Siva Theja Maguluri

Classical game-theoretic approaches for multi-agent systems in both the forward policy design problem and the inverse reward learning problem often make strong rationality assumptions: agents perfectly maximize expected utilities under…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-23 Ran Tian , Liting Sun , Masayoshi Tomizuka