Related papers: One step futher: an explicit solution to Robbins' …
A curious connection exists between the theory of optimal stopping for independent random variables, and branching processes. In particular, for the branching process $Z_n$ with offspring distribution $Y$, there exists a random variable $X$…
We prove two basic conjectures on the distribution of the smallest singular value of random n times n matrices with independent entries. Under minimal moment assumptions, we show that the smallest singular value is of order n^{-1/2}, which…
Consider a set of N agents seeking to solve distributively the minimization problem $\inf_{x} \sum_{n = 1}^N f_n(x)$ where the convex functions $f_n$ are local to the agents. The popular Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers has the…
We obtain the best possible upper bounds for the moments of a single order statistic from independent, non-negative random variables, in terms of the population mean. The main result covers the independent identically distributed case.…
An extension of the traditional two-armed bandit problem is considered, in which the decision maker has access to some side information before deciding which arm to pull. At each time t, before making a selection, the decision maker is able…
We study the space requirements of a sorting algorithm where only items that at the end will be adjacent are kept together. This is equivalent to the following combinatorial problem: Consider a string of fixed length n that starts as a…
We derive a-priori error estimates for the finite-element approximation of a distributed optimal control problem governed by the steady one-dimensional Burgers equation with pointwise box constraints on the control. Here the approximation…
In this article, a general problem of sequential statistical inference for general discrete-time stochastic processes is considered. The problem is to minimize an average sample number given that Bayesian risk due to incorrect decision does…
We consider the time-varying actuator placement in continuous time, where the goal is to maximize the trace of the controllability Grammian. A natural relaxation of the problem is to allow the binary $\{0,1\}$ variable indicating whether an…
This paper studies a sequential decision problem where payoff distributions are known and where the riskiness of payoffs matters. Equivalently, it studies sequential choice from a repeated set of independent lotteries. The decision-maker is…
In the secretary problem of Cayley (1875) and Moser (1956), $n$ non-negative, independent, random variables with common distribution are sequentially presented to a decision maker who decides when to stop and collect the most recent…
We consider a statistical inverse learning problem, where we observe the image of a function $f$ through a linear operator $A$ at i.i.d. random design points $X_i$, superposed with an additive noise. The distribution of the design points is…
Flip a coin repeatedly, and stop whenever you want. Your payoff is the proportion of heads, and you wish to maximize this payoff in expectation. This so-called Chow-Robbins game is amenable to computer analysis, but while simple-minded…
A version of the secretary problem is considered. The ranks of items, whose values are independent, identically distributed random variables $X_1,X_2,...,X_n$ from a uniform distribution on $[0; 1]$, are observed sequentially by the grader.…
In this paper, we solve explicitly the optimal stopping problem with random discounting and an additive functional as cost of observations for a regular linear diffusion. We also extend the results to the class of one-sided regular Feller…
The Bruss-Robertson inequality gives a bound on the maximal number of elements of a random sample whose sum is less than a specified value, and the extension of that inequality which is given here neither requires the independence of the…
The basic problem of optimal transportation consists in minimizing the expected costs $\mathbb {E}[c(X_1,X_2)]$ by varying the joint distribution $(X_1,X_2)$ where the marginal distributions of the random variables $X_1$ and $X_2$ are…
Many estimation problems in robotics, computer vision, and learning require estimating unknown quantities in the face of outliers. Outliers are typically the result of incorrect data association or feature matching, and it is common to have…
Considering a real-valued diffusion, a real-valued reward function and a positive discount rate, we provide an algorithm to solve the optimal stopping problem consisting in finding the optimal expected discounted reward and the optimal…
Let $n$ be a positive integer and $X = [x_{ij}]_{1 \leq i, j \leq n}$ be an $n \times n$\linebreak \noindent sized matrix of independent random variables having joint uniform distribution $$\hbox{Pr} {x_{ij} = k \hbox{for} 1 \leq k \leq n}…