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Related papers: On Variants of the Matroid Secretary Problem

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We study a learning-augmented variant of the secretary problem, recently introduced by Fujii and Yoshida (2023), in which the decision-maker has access to machine-learned predictions of candidate values. The central challenge is to balance…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Helia Karisani , Mohammadreza Daneshvaramoli , Hedyeh Beyhaghi , Mohammad Hajiesmaili , Cameron Musco

We consider generalizations of the classical secretary problem, also known as the problem of optimal choice, to posets where the only information we have is the size of the poset and the number of maximal elements. We show that, given this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-06-29 Bryn Garrod , Robert Morris

We study matroid prophet inequalities when distributions are unknown and accessible only through samples. While single-sample prophet inequalities for special matroids are known, no constant-factor competitive algorithm with even a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-06-19 Hu Fu , Pinyan Lu , Zhihao Gavin Tang , Hongxun Wu , Jinzhao Wu , Qianfan Zhang

In learning-augmented online algorithms, predictions are usually valued for what they say: a value estimate, a solution, or an algorithmic recommendation. This paper shows that predictions can also be valuable solely due to their arrival…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-05-22 Franziska Eberle , Alexander Lindermayr

The secretary problem is probably the purest model of decision making under uncertainty. In this paper we ask which advice can we give the algorithm to improve its success probability? We propose a general model that unifies a broad range…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-16 Paul Dütting , Silvio Lattanzi , Renato Paes Leme , Sergei Vassilvitskii

The secretary and the prophet inequality problems are central to the field of Stopping Theory. Recently, there has been a lot of work in generalizing these models to multiple items because of their applications in mechanism design. The most…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-03-20 Soheil Ehsani , MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Thomas Kesselheim , Sahil Singla

In the Secretary Problem, one has to hire the best among n candidates. The candidates are interviewed, one at a time, at a random order, and one has to decide on the spot, whether to hire a candidate or continue interviewing. It is well…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-07-23 Moran Feldman , Rani Izsak

For many online problems, it is known that the uniform arrival order enables the design of algorithms with much better performance guarantees than under worst-case. The quintessential example is the secretary problem. If the sequence of…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-02-10 Thomas Kesselheim , Robert Kleinberg , Rad Niazadeh

During the last decade, the matroid secretary problem (MSP) became one of the most prominent classes of online selection problems. Partially linked to its numerous applications in mechanism design, substantial interest arose also in the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-07-31 Moran Feldman , Rico Zenklusen

The secretary problem is one of the fundamental problems in online decision making; a tight competitive ratio for this problem of $1/\mathrm{e} \approx 0.368$ has been known since the 1960s. Much more recently, the study of algorithms with…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-10-01 Alexander Braun , Sherry Sarkar

In this paper we revisit the basic variant of the classical secretary problem. We propose a new approach in which we separate between an agent that evaluates the secretary performance and one that has to make the hiring decision. The…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-05-27 Niklas Hahn , Martin Hoefer , Rann Smorodinsky

In this paper we consider two variants of the Secretary problem: The Best-or-Worst and the Postdoc problems. We extend previous work by considering that the number of objects is not known and follows either a discrete Uniform distribution…

Probability · Mathematics 2018-11-13 L. Bayon , P. Fortuny , J. M. Grau , M. M Ruiz , M. A. Oller-Marcen

We study secretary problems in settings with multiple agents. In the standard secretary problem, a sequence of arbitrary awards arrive online, in a random order, and a single decision maker makes an immediate and irrevocable decision…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-07-15 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ron Kupfer

We revisit three fundamental problems in algorithms under uncertainty: the Secretary Problem, Prophet Inequality, and Stochastic Probing, each subject to general downward-closed constraints. When elements have binary values, all three…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-04-02 Aviad Rubinstein , Sahil Singla

The random-order or secretary model is one of the most popular beyond-worst case model for online algorithms. While it avoids the pessimism of the traditional adversarial model, in practice we cannot expect the input to be presented in…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Thomas Kesselheim , Marco Molinaro

Contention resolution schemes have proven to be a useful and unifying abstraction for a variety of constrained optimization problems, in both offline and online arrival models. Much of prior work restricts attention to product distributions…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-04-30 Shaddin Dughmi

For $2\le k\in\mathbb{N}$, consider the following adaptation of the classical secretary problem. There are $k$ items at each of $n$ linearly ordered ranks. The $kn$ items are revealed, one item at a time, in a uniformly random order, to an…

Probability · Mathematics 2022-08-24 Ross G. Pinsky

The well-known secretary problem in sequential analysis and optimal stopping theory asks one to maximize the probability of finding the optimal candidate in a sequentially examined list under the constraint that accept/reject decisions are…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-13 Xujun Liu , Olgica Milenkovic

A version of the classical secretary problem is studied, in which one is interested in selecting one of the b best out of a group of n differently ranked persons who are presented one by one in a random order. It is assumed that b is a…

Probability · Mathematics 2010-09-06 Chris Dietz , Dinard van der Laan , Ad Ridder

In this paper we consider the so-called Multi-returning secretary problem, a version of the Secretary problem in which each candidate has $m$ identical copies. The case $m=2$ has already been completely solved by several authors using…

Probability · Mathematics 2020-10-16 L. Bayon , P. Fortuny , J. M. Grau , A. Oller Marcen , M. M. Ruiz