Related papers: Multiplicative Rewards in Markovian Models
We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in Markov Decision Processes in which an agent repeatedly interacts with an environment that is modeled by a controlled Markov process. At each time step $t$, it earns a reward, and also incurs a…
Modified policy iteration (MPI) is a dynamic programming algorithm that combines elements of policy iteration and value iteration. The convergence of MPI has been well studied in the context of discounted and average-cost MDPs. In this…
This paper discusses algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) that have monotone optimal policies. We propose a two-stage alternating convex optimization scheme that can accelerate the search for an optimal policy by…
Contextual Markov decision processes (CMDPs) describe a class of reinforcement learning problems in which the transition kernels and reward functions can change over time with different MDPs indexed by a context variable. While CMDPs serve…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a fundamental model in sequential decision making. Robust MDPs (RMDPs) extend this framework by allowing uncertainty in transition probabilities and optimizing against the worst-case realization of that…
This paper proposes a novel termination criterion, termed the advantage gap function, for finite state and action Markov decision processes (MDP) and reinforcement learning (RL). By incorporating this advantage gap function into the design…
This paper is devoted to solving a time-inconsistent risk-sensitive control problem with parameter $\e$ and its limit case ($\e\rightarrow0^+$) for countable-stated Markov decision processes (MDPs for short). Since the cost functional is…
Consider a transmission scheme with a single transmitter and multiple receivers over a faulty broadcast channel. For each receiver, the transmitter has a unique infinite stream of packets, and its goal is to deliver them at the highest…
We consider the problem of computing the value and an optimal strategy for minimizing the expected termination time in one-counter Markov decision processes. Since the value may be irrational and an optimal strategy may be rather…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide an elegant mathematical framework for modeling complex decision and planning problems in stochastic domains in which states of the system are observable only indirectly, via a…
In reinforcement learning, the reward function on current state and action is widely used. When the objective is about the expectation of the (discounted) total reward only, it works perfectly. However, if the objective involves the total…
We study reward-free and reward-agnostic exploration in episodic finite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs), where an agent explores an unknown environment without observing external rewards. Reward-free exploration aims to enable…
Canonical models of Markov decision processes (MDPs) usually consider geometric discounting based on a constant discount factor. While this standard modeling approach has led to many elegant results, some recent studies indicate the…
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…
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…
Learning and optimal control under robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) have received increasing attention, yet most existing theory, algorithms, and applications focus on finite-horizon or discounted models. Long-run average-reward…
Policy Iteration (PI) is a widely used family of algorithms to compute optimal policies for Markov Decision Problems (MDPs). We derive upper bounds on the running time of PI on Deterministic MDPs (DMDPs): the class of MDPs in which every…
We introduce a novel class of algorithms to efficiently approximate the unknown return distributions in policy evaluation problems from distributional reinforcement learning (DRL). The proposed distributional dynamic programming algorithms…
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…
Markov decision processes are useful models of concurrency optimisation problems, but are often intractable for exhaustive verification methods. Recent work has introduced lightweight approximative techniques that sample directly from…