English

Purchasing a C_4 online

Data Structures and Algorithms 2016-11-23 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a graph with edge set (e1,e2,...eN)(e_1,e_2,...e_N). We independently associate to each edge eie_i of GG a cost xi{x}_i that is drawn from a Uniform [0, 1] distribution. Suppose F\mathcal{F} is a set of targeted structures that consists of subgraphs of GG. We would like to buy a subset of F\mathcal{F} at small cost, however we do not know a priori the values of the random variables x1,...,xN{x}_1,...,{x}_N. Instead, we inspect the random variables xix_i one at a time. As soon as we inspect the random variable associated with the cost of an edge we have to decide whether we want to buy that edge or reject it for ever. In the present paper we consider the case where GG is the complete graph on nn vertices and F\mathcal{F} is the set of all C4C_4 -cycles on 4 vertices- out of which we want to buy one.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1611.07503,
  title  = {Purchasing a C_4 online},
  author = {Michael Anastos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.07503},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:01:24.861Z