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Markov decision processes (MDPs) is viewed as an optimization of an objective function over certain linear operators over general function spaces. A new existence result is established for the existence of optimal policies in general MDPs,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-01 Abhishek Gupta , Aditya Mahajan

We review the literature on individual patient organ acceptance decision making by presenting a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model to formulate the organ acceptance decision process as a stochastic control problem. Under the umbrella of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-03 Xingyu Ren , Michael C. Fu , Steven I. Marcus

We consider policy evaluation in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision problems (MDPs) with infinite spaces. We reformulate this task a compositional stochastic program with a function-valued decision variable that belongs to a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-19 Alec Koppel , Garrett Warnell , Ethan Stump , Peter Stone , Alejandro Ribeiro

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are mathematical models of sequential decision-making under uncertainty that have found applications in healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and others. In these models, a decision-maker observes the state…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-22 Madeleine Pollack , Lauren N. Steimle

In this paper, we focus on formal synthesis of control policies for finite Markov decision processes with non-negative real-valued costs. We develop an algorithm to automatically generate a policy that guarantees the satisfaction of a…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2013-09-10 Maria Svorenova , Ivana Cerna , Calin Belta

We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-07-13 Kush Grover , Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer , Maximilian Weininger

This work focuses on off-policy evaluation (OPE) with function approximation in infinite-horizon undiscounted Markov decision processes (MDPs). For MDPs that are ergodic and linear (i.e. where rewards and dynamics are linear in some known…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-24 Nevena Lazic , Dong Yin , Mehrdad Farajtabar , Nir Levine , Dilan Gorur , Chris Harris , Dale Schuurmans

We study Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a countably infinite number of states. The $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) threshold objective is to maximize the probability that the $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) of the infinite sequence of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-19 Richard Mayr , Eric Munday

In this work, we investigate the optimal control problem for continuous-time Markov decision processes with the random impact of the environment. We provide conditions to show the existence of optimal controls under finite-horizon criteria.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-06-23 Jinghai Shao , Kun Zhao

This paper considers the problem of finding near-optimal Markovian randomized (MR) policies for finite-state-action, infinite-horizon, constrained risk-sensitive Markov decision processes (CRSMDPs). Constraints are in the form of standard…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-14 Uday Kumar M , Sanjay P Bhat , Veeraruna Kavitha , Nandyala Hemachandra

This paper studies optimal motion planning subject to motion and environment uncertainties. By modeling the system as a probabilistic labeled Markov decision process (PL-MDP), the control objective is to synthesize a finite-memory policy,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-01-03 Mingyu Cai , Shaoping Xiao , Zhijun Li , Zhen Kan

We formulate a probabilistic Markov property in discrete time under a dynamic risk framework with minimal assumptions. This is useful for recursive solutions to risk-sensitive versions of dynamic optimisation problems such as optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-05 Tomasz Kosmala , Randall Martyr , John Moriarty

Discrete time stochastic optimal control problems and Markov decision processes (MDPs), respectively, serve as fundamental models for problems that involve sequential decision making under uncertainty and as such constitute the theoretical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-08 Christian Beck , Arnulf Jentzen , Konrad Kleinberg , Thomas Kruse

In reinforcement learning (RL), when defining a Markov Decision Process (MDP), the environment dynamics is implicitly assumed to be stationary. This assumption of stationarity, while simplifying, can be unrealistic in many scenarios. In the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-15 Shagun Sodhani , Franziska Meier , Joelle Pineau , Amy Zhang

Safety in stochastic control systems, which are subject to random noise with a known probability distribution, aims to compute policies that satisfy predefined operational constraints with high confidence throughout the uncertain evolution…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-12 Saber Omidi , Marek Petrik , Se Young Yoon , Momotaz Begum

Contextual MDPs are powerful tools with wide applicability in areas from biostatistics to machine learning. However, specializing them to offline datasets has been challenging due to a lack of robust, theoretically backed methods. Our work…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-06 Riddhiman Bhattacharyya , Sayak Chakrabarty , Imon Banerjee

This paper investigates backdoor attack planning in stochastic control systems modeled as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). A backdoor attack involves an adversary deploying a policy that performs well in the original MDP to pass testing,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-27 Xinyi Wei , Shuo Han , Ahmed H. Hemida , Charles A. Kamhoua , Jie Fu

We consider the problem of designing policies for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with dynamic coherent risk objectives. Synthesizing risk-averse optimal policies for POMDPs requires infinite memory and thus…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-09-30 Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Masahiro Ono , Michel D. Ingham , Richard M. Murray , Aaron D. Ames

This paper studies the optimization of Markov decision processes (MDPs) from a risk-seeking perspective, where the risk is measured by conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). The objective is to find a policy that maximizes the long-run CVaR of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-05 Li Xia , Zhihui Yu , Peter W. Glynn

We study an approximation method for partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with continuous spaces. Belief MDP reduction, which has been the standard approach to study POMDPs requires rigorous approximation methods for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-20 Ali Devran Kara , Erhan Bayraktar , Serdar Yuksel