Related papers: The secretary problem on an unknown poset
The assignment problem is one of the most well-studied settings in social choice, matching, and discrete allocation. We consider the problem with the additional feature that agents' preferences involve uncertainty. The setting with…
In this paper we deal with the problem of finding the smallest and the largest elements of a totally ordered set of size $n$ using pairwise comparisons if $k$ of the comparisons might be erroneous where $k$ is a fixed constant. We prove…
A natural variant of the classical online $k$-server problem is the Weighted $k$-server problem, where the cost of moving a server is its weight times the distance through which it moves. Despite its apparent simplicity, the weighted…
The rich literature on online Bayesian selection problems has long focused on so-called prophet inequalities, which compare the gain of an online algorithm to that of a "prophet" who knows the future. An equally-natural, though…
We consider a stochastic online problem where $n$ applicants arrive over time, one per time step. Upon arrival of each applicant their cost per time step is revealed, and we have to fix the duration of employment, starting immediately. This…
The existence of a (p-)optimal propositional proof system is a major open question in (proof) complexity; many people conjecture that such systems do not exist. Krajicek and Pudlak (1989) show that this question is equivalent to the…
This paper studies Makespan Minimization in the secretary model. Formally, jobs, specified by their processing times, are presented in a uniformly random order. An online algorithm has to assign each job permanently and irrevocably to one…
Given vectors $v_1,\dots,v_n\in\mathbb{R}^d$ and a matroid $M=([n],I)$, we study the problem of finding a basis $S$ of $M$ such that $\det(\sum_{i \in S}v_i v_i^\top)$ is maximized. This problem appears in a diverse set of areas such as…
Consider the commonly known puzzle, given $k$ glass balls, find an optimal algorithm to determine the lowest floor of a building of $n$ floors from which a thrown glass ball will break. This puzzle was originally posed in its original form…
We study a variant of the single-choice prophet inequality problem where the decision-maker does not know the underlying distribution and has only access to a set of samples from the distributions. Rubinstein et al. [2020] showed that the…
In a delegation problem, a principal P with commitment power tries to pick one out of $n$ options. Each option is drawn independently from a known distribution. Instead of inspecting the options herself, P delegates the information…
We consider an online multi-weighted generalization of several classic online optimization problems, called the online combinatorial assignment problem. We are given an independence system over a ground set of elements and agents that…
Optimization under uncertainty deals with the problem of optimizing stochastic cost functions given some partial information on their inputs. These problems are extremely difficult to solve and yet pervade all areas of technological and…
We study a "pen testing" problem, in which we are given $n$ pens with unknown amounts of ink $X_1, X_2, \ldots, X_n$, and we want to choose a pen with the maximum amount of remaining ink in it. The challenge is that we cannot access each…
Given a set of points in the plane, the \textsc{General Position Subset Selection} problem is that of finding a maximum-size subset of points in general position, i.e., with no three points collinear. The problem is known to be ${\rm…
This paper presents the first convergence result for random search algorithms to a subset of the Pareto set of given maximum size k with bounds on the approximation quality. The core of the algorithm is a new selection criterion based on a…
We study the smallest possible number of points in a topological space having k open sets. Equivalently, this is the smallest possible number of elements in a poset having k order ideals. Using efficient algorithms for constructing 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 study of Dense-$3$-Subhypergraph problem was initiated in Chlamt{\'{a}}c et al. [Approx'16]. The input is a universe $U$ and collection ${\cal S}$ of subsets of $U$, each of size $3$, and a number $k$. The goal is to choose a set $W$ of…
MAX NAE-SAT is a natural optimization problem, closely related to its better-known relative MAX SAT. The approximability status of MAX NAE-SAT is almost completely understood if all clauses have the same size $k$, for some $k\ge 2$. We…