Related papers: Weakly-Coupled Multi-Action Restless Bandits -- Ex…

We study a finite-horizon restless multi-armed bandit problem with multiple actions, dubbed R(MA)^2B. The state of each arm evolves according to a controlled Markov decision process (MDP), and the reward of pulling an arm depends on both…

We study a resource allocation problem with varying requests, and with resources of limited capacity shared by multiple requests. It is modeled as a set of heterogeneous Restless Multi-Armed Bandit Problems (RMABPs) connected by constraints…

Consider a multi-agent system in a dynamic and uncertain environment. Each agent's local decision problem is modeled as a Markov decision process (MDP) and agents must coordinate on a joint action in each period, which provides a reward to…

A basic model in sequential decision making is the Markov decision process (MDP), which is extended to Robust MDPs (RMDPs) by allowing uncertainty in transition probabilities and optimizing against the worst-case transition probabilities…

A constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) approach is developed for response-adaptive procedures in clinical trials with binary outcomes. The resulting CMDP class of Bayesian response -- adaptive procedures can be used to target a…

Sequential decisions in volatile, high-stakes settings require more than maximizing expected return; they require principled uncertainty management. This paper presents the Uncertainty-Aware Markov Decision Process (UAMDP), a unified…

We consider a multi-armed bandit problem motivated by situations where only the extreme values, as opposed to expected values in the classical bandit setting, are of interest. We propose distribution free algorithms using robust statistics…

In this paper, we consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with error states. Error states are those states entering which is undesirable or dangerous. We define the risk with respect to a policy as the probability of entering such a state…

We develop a stochastic approximation-type algorithm to solve finite state/action, infinite-horizon, risk-aware Markov decision processes. Our algorithm has two loops. The inner loop computes the risk by solving a stochastic saddle-point…

The problem of stochastic deadline scheduling is considered. A constrained Markov decision process model is introduced in which jobs arrive randomly at a service center with stochastic job sizes, rewards, and completion deadlines. The…

Contextual bandits are canonical models for sequential decision-making under uncertainty in environments with time-varying components. In this setting, the expected reward of each bandit arm consists of the inner product of an unknown…

A recent theoretical analysis of a Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) method properly modified from the ``upper confidence bound applied to trees" (UCT) algorithm established a surprising result, due to a great deal of empirical successes…

This paper discusses the functional stability of closed-loop Markov Chains under optimal policies resulting from a discounted optimality criterion, forming Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). We investigate the stability of MDPs in the sense…

We study the problem of identifying the best arm in a multi-armed bandit environment when each arm is a time-homogeneous and ergodic discrete-time Markov process on a common, finite state space. The state evolution on each arm is governed…

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a risk measure of variability in cost, under the risk-aware MDPs paradigm. Previous studies showed that risk-aware MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handling risk, can be…

We study infinite horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with "fast-slow" structure, where some state variables evolve rapidly ("fast states") while others change more gradually ("slow states"). This structure commonly arises in practice…

Markov Decision Processes are classically solved using Value Iteration and Policy Iteration algorithms. Recent interest in Reinforcement Learning has motivated the study of methods inspired by optimization, such as gradient ascent. Among…

We consider the contextual bandit problem on general action and context spaces, where the learner's rewards depend on their selected actions and an observable context. This generalizes the standard multi-armed bandit to the case where side…

We present a method for solving implicit (factored) Markov decision processes (MDPs) with very large state spaces. We introduce a property of state space partitions which we call epsilon-homogeneity. Intuitively, an epsilon-homogeneous…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model a wide variety of applications ranging from game playing over robotics to finance. Their optimal policy typically maximizes the expected sum of rewards given at each step of the decision…