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This paper studies discrete-time average-cost infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with Borel state and action sets. It introduces new sufficient conditions for { the} validity of optimality inequalities and optimality…
We prove new upper and lower bounds for sample complexity of finding an $\epsilon$-optimal policy of an infinite-horizon average-reward Markov decision process (MDP) given access to a generative model. When the mixing time of the…
This paper provides conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) can be reduced to discounted ones. Results are given for transient total-cost MDPs with tran- sition rates whose values may be greater…
In robust Markov decision processes (MDPs), the uncertainty in the transition kernel is addressed by finding a policy that optimizes the worst-case performance over an uncertainty set of MDPs. While much of the literature has focused on…
In this paper, we study a mean-variance optimization problem in an infinite horizon discrete time discounted Markov decision process (MDP). The objective is to minimize the variance of system rewards with the constraint of mean performance.…
For a Markov decision process with countably infinite states, the optimal value may not be achievable in the set of stationary policies. In this paper, we study the existence conditions of an optimal stationary policy in a countable-state…
We are interested in risk constraints for infinite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes (MDPs). Starting with average reward MDPs, we show that increasing concave stochastic dominance constraints on the empirical distribution of…
This paper studies Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with atomless initial state distributions and atomless transition probabilities. Such MDPs are called atomless. The initial state distribution is considered to be fixed. We show that for…
We consider discrete-time Markov Decision Processes with Borel state and action spaces and universally measurable policies. For several long-run average cost criteria, we establish the following optimality results: the optimal average cost…
We present the first finite time global convergence analysis of policy gradient in the context of infinite horizon average reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). Specifically, we focus on ergodic tabular MDPs with finite state and action…
This article considers the average optimality for a continuous-time Markov decision process with Borel state and action spaces and an arbitrarily unbounded nonnegative cost rate. The existence of a deterministic stationary optimal policy is…
This paper is devoted to studying constrained continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the class of randomized policies depending on state histories. The transition rates may be unbounded, the reward and costs are admitted to be…
This paper presents sufficient conditions for the existence of stationary optimal policies for average-cost Markov Decision Processes with Borel state and action sets and with weakly continuous transition probabilities. The one-step cost…
We study non-rectangular robust Markov decision processes under the average-reward criterion, where the ambiguity set couples transition probabilities across states and the adversary commits to a stationary kernel for the entire horizon. We…
This note describes sufficient conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with general state and action spaces, and with weakly continuous transition probabilities, can be reduced to discounted MDPs.…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…
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…
In several standard models of dynamic programming (gambling houses, MDPs, POMDPs), we prove the existence of a very robust notion of value for the infinitely repeated problem, namely the pathwise uniform value. This solves two open…
This paper proposes a computationally tractable algorithm for learning infinite-horizon average-reward linear Markov decision processes (MDPs) and linear mixture MDPs under the Bellman optimality condition. While guaranteeing computational…
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…