We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with multiple limit-average (or
mean-payoff) objectives. There exist two different views: (i) the expectation
semantics, where the goal is to optimize the expected mean-payoff objective,
and (ii) the satisfaction semantics, where the goal is to maximize the
probability of runs such that the mean-payoff value stays above a given vector.
We consider optimization with respect to both objectives at once, thus unifying
the existing semantics. Precisely, the goal is to optimize the expectation
while ensuring the satisfaction constraint. Our problem captures the notion of
optimization with respect to strategies that are risk-averse (i.e., ensure
certain probabilistic guarantee). Our main results are as follows: First, we
present algorithms for the decision problems which are always polynomial in the
size of the MDP. We also show that an approximation of the Pareto-curve can be
computed in time polynomial in the size of the MDP, and the approximation
factor, but exponential in the number of dimensions. Second, we present a
complete characterization of the strategy complexity (in terms of memory bounds
and randomization) required to solve our problem.Comment: Extended journal version of the LICS'15 pape