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Due to their numerous applications, in particular in Mechanism Design, Prophet Inequalities have experienced a surge of interest. They describe competitive ratios for basic stopping time problems where random variables get revealed…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Moran Feldman , Ola Svensson , Rico Zenklusen

In the Matroid Secretary Problem, introduced by Babaioff et al. [SODA 2007], the elements of a given matroid are presented to an online algorithm in random order. When an element is revealed, the algorithm learns its weight and decides…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2010-07-27 José A. Soto

The secretary problem has been a focus of extensive study with a variety of extensions that offer useful insights into the theory of optimal stopping. The original solution is to set one stopping threshold that gives rise to an immediately…

Physics and Society · Physics 2023-02-08 Roberto Brera , Feng Fu

Prophet inequalities are a cornerstone in optimal stopping and online decision-making. Traditionally, they involve the sequential observation of $n$ non-negative independent random variables and face irrevocable accept-or-reject choices.…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-08-22 Sebastian Perez-Salazar , Victor Verdugo

We initiate the study of the prophet inequality problem through the resource augmentation framework in scenarios when the values of the rewards are correlated. Our goal is to determine the number of additional rewards an online algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-12 Tomer Ezra , Tamar Garbuz

In the classical prophet inequality settings, a gambler is given a sequence of $n$ random variables $X_1, \dots, X_n$, taken from known distributions, observes their values in this (potentially adversarial) order, and select one of them,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-19 Sariel Har-Peled , Elfarouk Harb , Vasilis Livanos

We study online selection problems in both the prophet and secretary settings, when arriving agents have interdependent values. In the interdependent values model, introduced in the seminal work of Milgrom and Weber [1982], each agent has a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-10 Simon Mauras , Divyarthi Mohan , Rebecca Reiffenhäuser

Most of the literature on online algorithms in revenue management focuses on settings with irrevocable decisions, where once a decision is made upon the arrival of a new input, it cannot be canceled later. Motivated by modern applications…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Farbod Ekbatani , Rad Niazadeh , Pranav Nuti , Jan Vondrak

We provide online algorithms for secretary matching in general weighted graphs, under the well-studied models of vertex and edge arrivals. In both models, edges are associated with arbitrary weights that are unknown from the outset, and are…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-04 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Nick Gravin , Zhihao Gavin Tang

Algorithms with predictions is a recent framework for decision-making under uncertainty that leverages the power of machine-learned predictions without making any assumption about their quality. The goal in this framework is for algorithms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-22 Eric Balkanski , Will Ma , Andreas Maggiori

We study the prophet inequality, a fundamental problem in online decision-making and optimal stopping, in a practical setting where rewards are observed only through noisy realizations and reward distributions are unknown. At each stage,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-03 Jung-hun Kim , Vianney Perchet

Whereas there are simple algorithms that are proven to be optimal for the Classical and the Multiple Choice Secretary Problem, the Matroid Secretary Problem is less thoroughly understood. This paper proposes the generalization of some…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-11-08 Simon Park

Competition complexity formalizes a compelling intuition: rather than refining the mechanism, how much additional competition is sufficient for a simple mechanism to compete with an optimal one? We begin the study of this question in…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-25 Eugenio Cruz-Ossa , Sebastian Perez-Salazar , Victor Verdugo

We consider a double secretary problem which contains $2n$ applicants of $n$ different qualities, two of each quality. As in the classical secretary problem (CSP), the applicants are interviewed sequentially in a random order by a manager…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Shoou-Ren Hsiau , Yi-Shen Lin

In the adaptive ProbeMax problem, given a collection of mutually-independent random variables $X_1, \ldots, X_n$, our goal is to design an adaptive probing policy for sequentially sampling at most $k$ of these variables, with the objective…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-10-17 Guillermo Gallego , Danny Segev

We design an expected polynomial-time, truthful-in-expectation, (1-1/e)-approximation mechanism for welfare maximization in a fundamental class of combinatorial auctions. Our results apply to bidders with valuations that are m matroid rank…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2011-04-19 Shaddin Dughmi , Tim Roughgarden , Qiqi Yan

Since its inception in the mid-60s, the inventory staggering problem has been explored and exploited in a wide range of application domains, such as production planning, stock control systems, warehousing, and aerospace/defense logistics.…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-06-13 Noga Alon , Danny Segev

We study the single-choice Prophet Inequality problem when the gambler is given access to samples. We show that the optimal competitive ratio of $1/2$ can be achieved with a single sample from each distribution. When the distributions are…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-09-12 Aviad Rubinstein , Jack Z. Wang , S. Matthew Weinberg

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

Suppose we are given integer $k \leq n$ and $n$ boxes labeled $1,\ldots, n$ by an adversary, each containing a number chosen from an unknown distribution. We have to choose an order to sequentially open these boxes, and each time we open…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-05-13 Mohammad Taghi Hajiaghayi , Dariusz R. Kowalski , Piotr Krysta , Jan Olkowski