Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: General Discounting versus Average Reward   Consider an agent interacting with an environment in cycles. In every
interaction cycle the agent is rewarded for its performance. We compare the
average reward U from cycle 1 to m (average value) with the future discounted
reward V from cycle k to infinity (discounted value). We consider essentially
arbitrary (non-geometric) discount sequences and arbitrary reward sequences
(non-MDP environments). We show that asymptotically U for m->infinity and V for
k->infinity are equal, provided both limits exist. Further, if the effective
horizon grows linearly with k or faster, then existence of the limit of U
implies that the limit of V exists. Conversely, if the effective horizon grows
linearly with k or slower, then existence of the limit of V implies that the
limit of U exists.

35
The categories of this paper are: mtrl-th
21
The categories of this paper are: adap-org
0
The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
32
The categories of this paper are: atom-ph
3
The categories of this paper are: physics
6
The categories of this paper are: astro-ph
19
The categories of this paper are: eess
15
The categories of this paper are: nucl-ex
20
The categories of this paper are: acc-phys
12
The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
8
The categories of this paper are: hep-ex
27
The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
4
The categories of this paper are: cond-mat
2
The categories of this paper are: math
16
The categories of this paper are: stat
33
The categories of this paper are: plasm-ph