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This work pioneers regret analysis of risk-sensitive reinforcement learning in partially observable environments with hindsight observation, addressing a gap in theoretical exploration. We introduce a novel formulation that integrates…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-29 Tonghe Zhang , Yu Chen , Longbo Huang

Non-stationary environments are challenging for reinforcement learning algorithms. If the state transition and/or reward functions change based on latent factors, the agent is effectively tasked with optimizing a behavior that maximizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-21 Lucas N. Alegre , Ana L. C. Bazzan , Bruno C. da Silva

Safety and robustness are two desired properties for any reinforcement learning algorithm. CMDPs can handle additional safety constraints and RMDPs can perform well under model uncertainties. In this paper, we propose to unite these two…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-21 Reazul Hasan Russel , Mouhacine Benosman , Jeroen Van Baar , Radu Corcodel

To plan safely in uncertain environments, agents must balance utility with safety constraints. Safe planning problems can be modeled as a chance-constrained partially observable Markov decision process (CC-POMDP) and solutions often use…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-05-02 Robert J. Moss , Arec Jamgochian , Johannes Fischer , Anthony Corso , Mykel J. Kochenderfer

The principle of optimism in the face of uncertainty is prevalent throughout sequential decision making problems such as multi-armed bandits and reinforcement learning (RL). To be successful, an optimistic RL algorithm must over-estimate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-07 Aldo Pacchiano , Philip J. Ball , Jack Parker-Holder , Krzysztof Choromanski , Stephen Roberts

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-23 Shin-ichi Maeda , Hayato Watahiki , Shintarou Okada , Masanori Koyama

We study model-based reinforcement learning (RL) for episodic Markov decision processes (MDP) whose transition probability is parametrized by an unknown transition core with features of state and action. Despite much recent progress in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-11-19 Taehyun Hwang , Min-hwan Oh

Online reinforcement learning (RL) has been widely applied in information processing scenarios, which usually exhibit much uncertainty due to the intrinsic randomness of channels and service demands. In this paper, we consider an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-17 Rongpeng Li

In order to make good decision under uncertainty an agent must learn from observations. To do so, two of the most common frameworks are Contextual Bandits and Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). In this paper, we study whether there exist…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Andrea Zanette , Emma Brunskill

Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have shown tremendous success in simulation environments, but their application to real-world problems faces significant challenges, with safety being a major concern. In particular, enforcing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-19 Weiye Zhao , Rui Chen , Yifan Sun , Tianhao Wei , Changliu Liu

We study the problem of reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon discounted linear Markov decision processes (MDPs), and propose the first computationally efficient algorithm achieving rate-optimal regret guarantees in this setting. Our…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-16 Antoine Moulin , Gergely Neu , Luca Viano

We consider reinforcement learning in parameterized Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where the parameterization may induce correlation across transition probabilities or rewards. Consequently, observing a particular state transition might…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-04-01 Aditya Gopalan , Shie Mannor

Solving Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) is hard. Learning optimal controllers for POMDPs when the model is unknown is harder. Online learning of optimal controllers for unknown POMDPs, which requires efficient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-16 Mehdi Jafarnia-Jahromi , Rahul Jain , Ashutosh Nayyar

This paper investigates conservative exploration in reinforcement learning where the performance of the learning agent is guaranteed to be above a certain threshold throughout the learning process. It focuses on the tabular episodic Markov…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-14 Donghao Li , Ruiquan Huang , Cong Shen , Jing Yang

We consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for Markov decision processes with safety constraints. We formulate the problem in a reach-avoid setup. Our goal is to design online reinforcement learning algorithms that ensure safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-21 Abhijit Mazumdar , Rafal Wisniewski , Manuela L. Bujorianu

We consider undiscounted reinforcement learning in Markov decision processes (MDPs) where both the reward functions and the state-transition probabilities may vary (gradually or abruptly) over time. For this problem setting, we propose an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-11 Pratik Gajane , Ronald Ortner , Peter Auer

Interpretable reinforcement learning policies are essential for high-stakes decision-making, yet optimizing decision tree policies in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) remains challenging. We propose SPOT, a novel method for computing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Xuyuan Xiong , Pedro Chumpitaz-Flores , Kaixun Hua , Cheng Hua

This work tackles the problem of robust zero-shot planning in non-stationary stochastic environments. We study Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) evolving over time and consider Model-Based Reinforcement Learning algorithms in this setting.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-16 Erwan Lecarpentier , Emmanuel Rachelson

Reinforcement learning in non-stationary environments is challenging due to abrupt and unpredictable changes in dynamics, often causing traditional algorithms to fail to converge. However, in many real-world cases, non-stationarity has some…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Mohsen Amiri , Sindri Magnússon

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a popular model for performance analysis and optimization of stochastic systems. The parameters of stochastic behavior of MDPs are estimates from empirical observations of a system; their values are not…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-10-26 Dimitri Scheftelowitsch , Peter Buchholz , Vahid Hashemi , Holger Hermanns