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We consider the problem of a decision-maker searching for information on multiple alternatives when information is learned on all alternatives simultaneously. The decision-maker has a running cost of searching for information, and has to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2020-04-13 T. Tony Ke , Wenpin Tang , J. Miguel Villas-Boas , Yuming Zhang

Reinforcement learning can greatly benefit from the use of options as a way of encoding recurring behaviours and to foster exploration. An important open problem is how can an agent autonomously learn useful options when solving particular…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-07 Manuel Del Verme , Bruno Castro da Silva , Gianluca Baldassarre

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

How do decisions change with the economic environment and with time? This paper studies general nonstationary stopping problems and provides the methodological tools to answer these questions. First, we identify conditions that ensure a…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-08-01 Théo Durandard , Matteo Camboni

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

A standard type of uncertainty set in robust optimization is budgeted uncertainty, where an interval of possible values for each parameter is given and the total deviation from their lower bounds is bounded. In the two-stage setting,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-19 Marc Goerigk , Dorothee Henke , Lasse Wulf

We consider the problem of decomposing a higher-order tensor with binary entries. Such data problems arise frequently in applications such as neuroimaging, recommendation system, topic modeling, and sensor network localization. We propose a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-22 Miaoyan Wang , Lexin Li

This paper studies a class of source coding problems that combines elements of the CEO problem with the multiple description problem. In this setting, noisy versions of one remote source are observed by two nodes with encoders (which is…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2010-01-07 Rajiv Soundararajan , Aaron B. Wagner , Sriram Vishwanath

We investigate the hiring problem where a sequence of applicants is sequentially interviewed, and a decision on whether to hire an applicant is immediately made based on the applicant's score. For the maximal and average improvement…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-03 P. L. Krapivsky

We consider the non-linear optimal multiple stopping problem under general conditions on the non-linear evaluation operators, which might depend on two time indices: the time of evaluation/assessment and the horizon (when the reward or loss…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-21 Miryana Grigorova , Marie-Claire Quenez , Peng Yuan

The stable marriage problem and its extensions have been extensively studied, with much of the work in the literature assuming that agents fully know their own preferences over alternatives. This assumption however is not always practical…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-03-21 Baharak Rastegari , Paul Goldberg , David Manlove

We consider the classical sequential binary hypothesis testing problem in which there are two hypotheses governed respectively by distributions $P_0$ and $P_1$ and we would like to decide which hypothesis is true using a sequential test. It…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-07-01 Yonglong Li , Vincent Y. F. Tan

Let us call a sequence of numbers heapable if they can be sequentially inserted to form a binary tree with the heap property, where each insertion subsequent to the first occurs at a leaf of the tree, i.e. below a previously placed number.…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2010-07-15 John Byers , Brent Heeringa , Michael Mitzenmacher , Georgios Zervas

We study a long-run persuasion problem where a long-lived Sender repeatedly interacts with a sequence of short-lived Receivers who may adopt a misspecified model for belief updating. The Sender commits to a stationary information structure,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-08-05 Hyeonggyun Ko

We study the problem of optimizing subgraph queries using the new worst-case optimal join plans. Worst-case optimal plans evaluate queries by matching one query vertex at a time using multiway intersections. The core problem in optimizing…

Databases · Computer Science 2019-06-04 Amine Mhedhbi , Semih Salihoglu

We consider the problem of choosing the best of $n$ samples, out of a large random pool, when the sampling of each member is associated with a certain cost. The quality (worth) of the best sample clearly increases with $n$, but so do the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2015-06-16 Joseph D. Skufca , Daniel ben-Avraham

Allocating conflicting jobs among individuals while respecting a budget constraint for each individual is an optimization problem that arises in various real-world scenarios. In this paper, we consider the situation where each individual…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-02-06 Sushmita Gupta , Pallavi Jain , A. Mohanapriya , Vikash Tripathi

The elements of a finite nonempty partially ordered set are exposed at independent uniform times in $[0,1]$ to a selector who, at any given time, can see the structure of the induced partial order on the exposed elements. The selector's…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-10-07 Ragnar Freij , Johan Wästlund

I argue that we must distinguish between: (0) the Three-Doors-Problem Problem [sic], which is to make sense of some real world question of a real person. (1) a large number of solutions to this meta-problem, i.e., many specific…

Applications · Statistics 2010-03-01 Richard D. Gill

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-10-11 Haris Aziz , Ronald de Haan , Baharak Rastegari