English

Partially ordered secretaries

Optimization and Control 2010-10-07 v2 Data Structures and Algorithms Probability

Abstract

The elements of a finite nonempty partially ordered set are exposed at independent uniform times in [0,1][0,1] to a selector who, at any given time, can see the structure of the induced partial order on the exposed elements. The selector's task is to choose online a maximal element. This generalizes the classical linear order secretary problem, for which it is known that the selector can succeed with probability 1/e1/e and that this is best possible. We describe a strategy for the general problem that achieves success probability 1/e1/e for an arbitrary partial order.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1008.3310,
  title  = {Partially ordered secretaries},
  author = {Ragnar Freij and Johan Wästlund},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1008.3310},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

5 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:02:53.107Z