English

Weber's optimal stopping problem and generalizations

Probability 2013-09-13 v2

Abstract

One way to interpret the classical secretary problem (CSP) is to consider it as a special case of the following problem. We observe nn independent indicator variables I1,I2,,InI_1,I_2,\dotsc,I_n sequentially and we try to stop on the last variable being equal to 1. If Ik=1I_k=1 it means that the kk-th observed secretary has smaller rank than all previous ones (and therefore is a better secretary). In the CSP pk=E(Ik)=1/kp_k=E(I_k)=1/k and the last kk with Ik=1I_k=1 stands for the best candidate. The more general problem of stopping on a last "1" was studied by Bruss(2000). In what we will call Weber's problem the variables IkI_k can take more than two values and we try to stop on the last occurence of \textit{one} of these values. Notice that we do not know in advance the value taken by the variable on which we stop. We can solve this problem in some cases and provide algorithms to compute the optimal stopping rule. These cases carry enough generality to be applicable in concrete situations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1309.2860,
  title  = {Weber's optimal stopping problem and generalizations},
  author = {Rémi Dendievel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.2860},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

12 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T01:24:59.167Z