Related papers: How long does it take to catch a wild kangaroo?
We revisit Hopcroft's problem and related fundamental problems about geometric range searching. Given $n$ points and $n$ lines in the plane, we show how to count the number of point-line incidence pairs or the number of point-above-line…
These notes are devoted to fluctuations of one-dimensional random walks. We discuss various approaches to first-passage times and to the corresponding conditional distributions. After discussion of some classical methods, such as reflection…
We present a novel application of the HHL (Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd) algorithm -- a quantum algorithm solving systems of linear equations -- in solving an open problem about quantum random walks, namely computing hitting (or absorption)…
We obtain quenched hitting distributions to be compound Poissonian for a certain class of random dynamical systems. The theory is general and designed to accommodate non-uniformly expanding behavior and targets that do not overlap much with…
Consider a random walk whose (light-tailed) increments have positive mean. Lower and upper bounds are provided for the expected maximal value of the random walk until it experiences a given drawdown d. These bounds, related to the Calmar…
Motivated by a problem in the theory of randomized search heuristics, we give a very precise analysis for the coupon collector problem where the collector starts with a random set of coupons (chosen uniformly from all sets). We show that…
For $d \geq 2$ and $n \in \mathbb{N}$, let $\mathsf{W}_n$ denote the uniform law on self-avoiding walks of length $n$ beginning at the origin in the nearest-neighbour integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$, and write $\Gamma$ for a…
We study a discrete random walk on a one-dimensional finite lattice, where each state has different probabilities to move one step forward, backward, staying for a moment or being absorbed. We obtain expected number of arrivals and expected…
A variation of Rosenstock's trapping model in which $N$ independent random walkers are all initially placed upon a site of a one-dimensional lattice in the presence of a {\em one-sided} random distribution (with probability $c$) of…
In the stochastic knapsack problem, we are given a knapsack of size B, and a set of jobs whose sizes and rewards are drawn from a known probability distribution. However, we know the actual size and reward only when the job completes. How…
We obtain the leading orders of the maximum and the minimum of local times for the simple random walk on the two-dimensional torus at time proportional to the cover time. We also estimate the number of points with large (or small) values of…
The document tries to put focus on sequences with certain properties and periods leading to the first value smaller than the starting value in the Collatz problem. With the idea that, if all starting numbers lead ultimately to a smaller…
The smoothed analysis of algorithms is concerned with the expected running time of an algorithm under slight random perturbations of arbitrary inputs. Spielman and Teng proved that the shadow-vertex simplex method has polynomial smoothed…
A collection of $n$ random events is said to be $(n - 1)$-wise independent if any $n - 1$ events among them are mutually independent. We characterise all probability measures with respect to which $n$ random events are $(n - 1)$-wise…
Consider a generalized Elephant Random Walk in which the step is chosen by selecting $k$ previous steps with $k$ odd and then going in the majority direction with a probability $p$ and in the opposite direction otherwise. In the $k=1$ case…
Updated version. Includes comments on the advances in the field from the Kyoto workshop on Resolution of Singularities in Positive Characteristic, December 2008. The article surveys the theory of kangaroo points as they appear in the…
A random Fibonacci sequence is defined by the relation g_n = | g_{n-1} +/- g_{n-2} |, where the +/- sign is chosen by tossing a balanced coin for each n. We generalize these sequences to the case when the coin is unbalanced (denoting by p…
We consider Poissonian pair correlations (PPC) for uniformly distributed sequences of random numbers with a dependency structure. More specifically, we treat two classes of dependent random variables which have widely been studied in the…
Calculating the expected number of misclassified outcomes is a standard problem of particular interest for rare-event searches. The Clopper-Pearson method allows calculation of classical confidence intervals on the amount of…
Finding schedules for pairwise meetings between the members of a complex social group without creating interpersonal conflict is challenging, especially when different relationships have different needs. We formally define and study the…