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This paper addresses a key limitation in existing counterfactual inference methods for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Current approaches assume a specific causal model to make counterfactuals identifiable. However, there are usually many…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-25 Jessica Lally , Milad Kazemi , Nicola Paoletti

We study infinite-horizon Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) with general policy parameterizations and multi-layer neural network critics. Existing theoretical analyses for constrained reinforcement learning largely rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Anirudh Satheesh , Pankaj Kumar Barman , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

We study the sample complexity of learning an $\varepsilon$-optimal policy in an average-reward Markov decision process (MDP) under a generative model. We establish the complexity bound $\widetilde{O}\left(SA\frac{H}{\varepsilon^2}…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-21 Matthew Zurek , Yudong Chen

We consider infinite-horizon Markov Decision Processes where parameters, such as transition probabilities, are unknown and estimated from data. The popular distributionally robust approach to addressing the parameter uncertainty can…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-12-23 Yifan Lin , Enlu Zhou

This paper investigates the optimization problem of an infinite stage discrete time Markov decision process (MDP) with a long-run average metric considering both mean and variance of rewards together. Such performance metric is important…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-08-11 Li Xia

Solving partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is highly intractable in general, at least in part because the optimal policy may be infinitely large. In this paper, we explore the problem of finding the optimal policy from…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-01-30 Nicolas Meuleau , Kee-Eung Kim , Leslie Pack Kaelbling , Anthony R. Cassandra

The practicality of reinforcement learning algorithms has been limited due to poor scaling with respect to the problem size, as the sample complexity of learning an $\epsilon$-optimal policy is $\tilde{\Omega}\left(|S||A|H^3 /…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-12 Tyler Sam , Yudong Chen , Christina Lee Yu

We study the problem of synthesizing a policy that maximizes the entropy of a Markov decision process (MDP) subject to a temporal logic constraint. Such a policy minimizes the predictability of the paths it generates, or dually, maximizes…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-17 Yagiz Savas , Melkior Ornik , Murat Cubuktepe , Mustafa O. Karabag , Ufuk Topcu

Designing control policies for large, distributed systems is challenging, especially in the context of critical, temporal logic based specifications (e.g., safety) that must be met with high probability. Compositional methods for such…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-10-08 Krishna C. Kalagarla , Matthew Low , Rahul Jain , Ashutosh Nayyar , Pierluigi Nuzzo

We consider a planning problem where the dynamics and rewards of the environment depend on a hidden static parameter referred to as the context. The objective is to learn a strategy that maximizes the accumulated reward across all contexts.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-02-10 Assaf Hallak , Dotan Di Castro , Shie Mannor

We study entropy-regularized constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the soft-max parameterization, in which an agent aims to maximize the entropy-regularized value function while satisfying constraints on the expected total…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-10 Donghao Ying , Yuhao Ding , Javad Lavaei

We propose MDP-GapE, a new trajectory-based Monte-Carlo Tree Search algorithm for planning in a Markov Decision Process in which transitions have a finite support. We prove an upper bound on the number of calls to the generative models…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-11 Anders Jonsson , Emilie Kaufmann , Pierre Ménard , Omar Darwiche Domingues , Edouard Leurent , Michal Valko

In this paper, we focus on the problem of robustifying reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms with respect to model uncertainties. Indeed, in the framework of model-based RL, we propose to merge the theory of constrained Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-13 Reazul Hasan Russel , Mouhacine Benosman , Jeroen Van Baar

We study the evaluation of a policy under best- and worst-case perturbations to a Markov decision process (MDP), using transition observations from the original MDP, whether they are generated under the same or a different policy. This is…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Andrew Bennett , Nathan Kallus , Miruna Oprescu , Wen Sun , Kaiwen Wang

We consider the problem of solving robust Markov decision process (MDP), which involves a set of discounted, finite state, finite action space MDPs with uncertain transition kernels. The goal of planning is to find a robust policy that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-13 Yan Li , Guanghui Lan , Tuo Zhao

The paper deals with finite-state Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights assigned to each state-action pair. New algorithms are presented to classify end components according to their limiting behavior with respect to the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-05-01 Christel Baier , Nathalie Bertrand , Clemens Dubslaff , Daniel Gburek , Ocan Sankur

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the standard formalism for modelling sequential decision making in stochastic environments. Policy synthesis addresses the problem of how to control or limit the decisions an agent makes so that a given…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2017-10-09 Peter Baumgartner , Sylvie Thiébaux , Felipe Trevizan

We study the sample complexity of learning an $\varepsilon$-optimal policy in an average-reward Markov decision process (MDP) under a generative model. For weakly communicating MDPs, we establish the complexity bound…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-25 Matthew Zurek , Yudong Chen

Computing optimal conditional reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is tractable by a reduction to reachability probabilities. Yet, this reduction yields cyclic, challenging MDPs that are often notoriously hard to…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Milan Češka , Sebastian Junges , Luko van der Maas , Filip Macák , Tim Quatmann

In this work, we design quantum algorithms that are more efficient than classical algorithms to solve time-dependent and finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) in two distinct settings: (1) In the exact dynamics setting, where the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-08-11 Bin Luo , Yuwen Huang , Jonathan Allcock , Xiaojun Lin , Shengyu Zhang , John C. S. Lui