This article addresses reinforcement learning problems based on factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) in which the agent must choose among a set of candidate abstractions, each build up from a different combination of state components. We present and evaluate a new approach that can perform effective abstraction selection that is more resource-efficient and\/or more general than existing approaches. The core of the approach is to make selection of an abstraction part of the learning agent’s decision-making process by augmenting the agent’s action space with internal actions that select the abstraction it uses. We prove that under certain conditions this approach results in a derived MDP whose solution yields both the optimal abstraction for the original MDP and the optimal policy under that abstraction. We examine our approach in three domains of increasing complexity: contextual bandit problems, episodic MDPs, and general MDPs with context-specific structure. \u00a9 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This article addresses reinforcement learning problems based on factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) in which the agent must choose among a set of candidate abstractions, each build up from a different combination of state components. We present and evaluate a new approach that can perform effective abstraction selection that is more resource-efficient and\/or more general […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-442656","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2013-08-04","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"657\u2013699","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"Computational Intelligence","msr_volume":"30-Apr","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/coin.12016\/abstract;jsessionid=A6A156974B499A18D26FC61A456347DB.f04t03?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+usage+report+download+page+will+be+unavailable+on+Friday+24th+November+2017+at+21%3A00+EST+%2F+02.00+GMT+%2F+10%3A00+SGT+%28Saturday+25th+Nov+for+SGT+","msr_doi":"10.1111\/coin.12016","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","title":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/coin.12016\/abstract;jsessionid=A6A156974B499A18D26FC61A456347DB.f04t03?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+usage+report+download+page+will+be+unavailable+on+Friday+24th+November+2017+at+21%3A00+EST+%2F+02.00+GMT+%2F+10%3A00+SGT+%28Saturday+25th+Nov+for+SGT+","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0},{"type":"doi","title":"10.1111\/coin.12016","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":0,"url":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/coin.12016\/abstract;jsessionid=A6A156974B499A18D26FC61A456347DB.f04t03?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+usage+report+download+page+will+be+unavailable+on+Friday+24th+November+2017+at+21%3A00+EST+%2F+02.00+GMT+%2F+10%3A00+SGT+%28Saturday+25th+Nov+for+SGT+"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"havansei","user_id":36656,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=havansei"},{"type":"text","value":"Shimon Whiteson","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"L.J.H.M. 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