Related papers: Tight Bounds for Blind Search on the Integers
Consider $N$ points randomly distributed along a line segment of unitary length. A walker explores this disordered medium moving according to a partially self-avoiding deterministic walk. The walker, with memory $\mu$, leaves from the…
In this paper, a branching random walk $(V(x))$ in the boundary case is studied, where the associated one dimensional random walk is in the domain of attraction of an $\alpha-$stable law with $1<\alpha<2$. Let $M_n$ be the minimal position…
Despite significant progress in the theory of evolutionary algorithms, the theoretical understanding of evolutionary algorithms which use non-trivial populations remains challenging and only few rigorous results exist. Already for the most…
Optimization seeks extremal points in a function. When there are superextensively many optima, optimization algorithms are liable to get stuck. Under these conditions, generic algorithms tend to find marginal optima, which have many nearly…
We study the maximum $k$-set coverage problem in the following distributed setting. A collection of sets $S_1,\ldots,S_m$ over a universe $[n]$ is partitioned across $p$ machines and the goal is to find $k$ sets whose union covers the most…
We study in-network computation on general network topologies. Specifically, we are given the description of a function, and a network with distinct nodes at which the operands of the function are made available, and a designated sink where…
A single target is hidden at a location chosen from a predetermined probability distribution. Then, a searcher must find a second probability distribution from which random search points are sampled such that the target is found in the…
This note considers a variation of the full-information secretary problem where the random variables to be observed are independent and identically distributed. Consider $X_1,\dots,X_n$ to be an independent sequence of random variables, let…
We consider first-passage percolation on the $d$ dimensional cubic lattice for $d \geq 2$; that is, we assign independently to each edge $e$ a nonnegative random weight $t_e$ with a common distribution and consider the induced random graph…
We consider the problem of autonomous navigation using limited information from a remote sensor network. Because the remote sensors are power and bandwidth limited, we use event-triggered (ET) estimation to manage communication costs. We…
A central object in optimal stopping theory is the single-choice prophet inequality for independent, identically distributed random variables: Given a sequence of random variables $X_1,\dots,X_n$ drawn independently from a distribution $F$,…
Given integer $n$ and $k$ such that $0 < k \leq n$ and $n$ piles of stones, two player alternate turns. By one move it is allowed to choose any $k$ piles and remove exactly one stone from each. The player who has to move but cannot is the…
We investigate the problem of determining a set S of k indistinguishable integers in the range [1,n]. The algorithm is allowed to query an integer $q\in [1,n]$, and receive a response comparing this integer to an integer randomly chosen…
In function inversion, we are given a function $f: [N] \mapsto [N]$, and want to prepare some advice of size $S$, such that we can efficiently invert any image in time $T$. This is a well studied problem with profound connections to…
The run-and-tumble walk, consisting in randomly reoriented ballistic excursions, models phenomena ranging from gas kinetics to bacteria motility. We evaluate the mean time required for this walk to find a fixed target within a 2D or 3D…
We consider the dynamics of the disordered, one-dimensional, symmetric zero range process in which a particle from an occupied site $k$ hops to its nearest neighbour with a quenched rate $w(k)$. These rates are chosen randomly from the…
Consider the following abstract coin tossing problem: Given a set of $n$ coins with unknown biases, find the most biased coin using a minimal number of coin tosses. This is a common abstraction of various exploration problems in theoretical…
We address a sequential decision problem that arises in the computation of symmetric Boolean functions of distributed data. We consider a collocated network, where each node's transmissions can be heard by every other node. Each node has a…
This paper considers a variation of the full-information secretary problem where the random variables to be observed are independent but not necessary identically distributed. The main result is a sharp lower bound for the optimal win…
The goal of ordinal embedding is to represent items as points in a low-dimensional Euclidean space given a set of constraints in the form of distance comparisons like "item $i$ is closer to item $j$ than item $k$". Ordinal constraints like…