Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a mathematical framework for modeling sequential decision problems under uncertainty as well as reinforcement learning problems. Written by experts in the field, this book provides a global view of current research using MDPs in artificial intelligence. It starts with an introductory presentation of the fundamental aspects of MDPs (planning in MDPs, reinforcement learning, partially observable MDPs, Markov games and the use of non-classical criteria). It then presents more advanced research trends in the field and gives some concrete examples using illustrative real life applications.
Provides a concise introduction to the use of Markov Decision Processes for solving probabilistic planning problems, with an emphasis on the algorithmic perspective. It covers the whole spectrum of the field, from the basics to state-of-the-art optimal and approximation algorithms.
The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. "This text is unique in bringing together so many results hitherto found only in part in other texts and papers. . . . The text is fairly self-contained, inclusive of some basic mathematical results needed, and provides a rich diet of examples, applications, and exercises. The bibliographical material at the end of each chapter is excellent, not only from a historical perspective, but because it is valuable for researchers in acquiring a good perspective of the MDP research potential." —Zentralblatt fur Mathematik ". . . it is of great value to advanced-level students, researchers, and professional practitioners of this field to have now a complete volume (with more than 600 pages) devoted to this topic. . . . Markov Decision Processes: Discrete Stochastic Dynamic Programming represents an up-to-date, unified, and rigorous treatment of theoretical and computational aspects of discrete-time Markov decision processes." —Journal of the American Statistical Association
Reinforcement learning encompasses both a science of adaptive behavior of rational beings in uncertain environments and a computational methodology for finding optimal behaviors for challenging problems in control, optimization and adaptive behavior of intelligent agents. As a field, reinforcement learning has progressed tremendously in the past decade. The main goal of this book is to present an up-to-date series of survey articles on the main contemporary sub-fields of reinforcement learning. This includes surveys on partially observable environments, hierarchical task decompositions, relational knowledge representation and predictive state representations. Furthermore, topics such as transfer, evolutionary methods and continuous spaces in reinforcement learning are surveyed. In addition, several chapters review reinforcement learning methods in robotics, in games, and in computational neuroscience. In total seventeen different subfields are presented by mostly young experts in those areas, and together they truly represent a state-of-the-art of current reinforcement learning research. Marco Wiering works at the artificial intelligence department of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He has published extensively on various reinforcement learning topics. Martijn van Otterlo works in the cognitive artificial intelligence group at the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands. He has mainly focused on expressive knowledge representation in reinforcement learning settings.
This book provides a unified approach for the study of constrained Markov decision processes with a finite state space and unbounded costs. Unlike the single controller case considered in many other books, the author considers a single controller with several objectives, such as minimizing delays and loss, probabilities, and maximization of throughputs. It is desirable to design a controller that minimizes one cost objective, subject to inequality constraints on other cost objectives. This framework describes dynamic decision problems arising frequently in many engineering fields. A thorough overview of these applications is presented in the introduction. The book is then divided into three sections that build upon each other.
The significantly expanded and updated new edition of a widely used text on reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives while interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the field's key ideas and algorithms. This second edition has been significantly expanded and updated, presenting new topics and updating coverage of other topics. Like the first edition, this second edition focuses on core online learning algorithms, with the more mathematical material set off in shaded boxes. Part I covers as much of reinforcement learning as possible without going beyond the tabular case for which exact solutions can be found. Many algorithms presented in this part are new to the second edition, including UCB, Expected Sarsa, and Double Learning. Part II extends these ideas to function approximation, with new sections on such topics as artificial neural networks and the Fourier basis, and offers expanded treatment of off-policy learning and policy-gradient methods. Part III has new chapters on reinforcement learning's relationships to psychology and neuroscience, as well as an updated case-studies chapter including AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero, Atari game playing, and IBM Watson's wagering strategy. The final chapter discusses the future societal impacts of reinforcement learning.
Reinforcement learning is a learning paradigm concerned with learning to control a system so as to maximize a numerical performance measure that expresses a long-term objective. What distinguishes reinforcement learning from supervised learning is that only partial feedback is given to the learner about the learner's predictions. Further, the predictions may have long term effects through influencing the future state of the controlled system. Thus, time plays a special role. The goal in reinforcement learning is to develop efficient learning algorithms, as well as to understand the algorithms' merits and limitations. Reinforcement learning is of great interest because of the large number of practical applications that it can be used to address, ranging from problems in artificial intelligence to operations research or control engineering. In this book, we focus on those algorithms of reinforcement learning that build on the powerful theory of dynamic programming. We give a fairly comprehensive catalog of learning problems, describe the core ideas, note a large number of state of the art algorithms, followed by the discussion of their theoretical properties and limitations. Table of Contents: Markov Decision Processes / Value Prediction Problems / Control / For Further Exploration
In both rich and poor nations, public resources for health care are inadequate to meet demand. Policy makers and health care providers must determine how to provide the most effective health care to citizens using the limited resources that are available. This chapter describes current and future challenges in the delivery of health care, and outlines the role that operations research (OR) models can play in helping to solve those problems. The chapter concludes with an overview of this book – its intended audience, the areas covered, and a description of the subsequent chapters. KEY WORDS Health care delivery, Health care planning HEALTH CARE DELIVERY: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES 3 1.1 WORLDWIDE HEALTH: THE PAST 50 YEARS Human health has improved significantly in the last 50 years. In 1950, global life expectancy was 46 years [1]. That figure rose to 61 years by 1980 and to 67 years by 1998 [2]. Much of these gains occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and were due in large part to improved nutrition and sanitation, medical innovations, and improvements in public health infrastructure.
Eugene A. Feinberg Adam Shwartz This volume deals with the theory of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and their applications. Each chapter was written by a leading expert in the re spective area. The papers cover major research areas and methodologies, and discuss open questions and future research directions. The papers can be read independently, with the basic notation and concepts ofSection 1.2. Most chap ters should be accessible by graduate or advanced undergraduate students in fields of operations research, electrical engineering, and computer science. 1.1 AN OVERVIEW OF MARKOV DECISION PROCESSES The theory of Markov Decision Processes-also known under several other names including sequential stochastic optimization, discrete-time stochastic control, and stochastic dynamic programming-studiessequential optimization ofdiscrete time stochastic systems. The basic object is a discrete-time stochas tic system whose transition mechanism can be controlled over time. Each control policy defines the stochastic process and values of objective functions associated with this process. The goal is to select a "good" control policy. In real life, decisions that humans and computers make on all levels usually have two types ofimpacts: (i) they cost orsavetime, money, or other resources, or they bring revenues, as well as (ii) they have an impact on the future, by influencing the dynamics. In many situations, decisions with the largest immediate profit may not be good in view offuture events. MDPs model this paradigm and provide results on the structure and existence of good policies and on methods for their calculation.
This book covers formulation, algorithms, and structural results of partially observed Markov decision processes, whilst linking theory to real-world applications in controlled sensing. Computations are kept to a minimum, enabling students and researchers in engineering, operations research, and economics to understand the methods and determine the structure of their optimal solution.
