Related papers: The Price of Information in Combinatorial Optimiza…
We consider stopping problems in which a decision maker (DM) faces an unknown state of nature and decides sequentially whether to stop and take an irreversible action; pay a fee and obtain additional information; or wait without acquiring…
A decisionmaker faces $n$ alternatives, each of which represents a potential reward. After investing costly resources into investigating the alternatives, the decisionmaker may select one, or more generally a feasible subset, and obtain the…
In the online Steiner tree problem, a sequence of points is revealed one-by-one: when a point arrives, we only have time to add a single edge connecting this point to the previous ones, and we want to minimize the total length of edges…
In rendezvous, two agents traverse network edges in synchronous rounds and have to meet at some node. In treasure hunt, a single agent has to find a stationary target situated at an unknown node of the network. We study tradeoffs between…
Efficient probabilistic inference by variable elimination in graphical models requires an optimal elimination order. However, finding an optimal order is a challenging combinatorial optimisation problem for models with a large number of…
We study network design with a cost structure motivated by redundancy in data traffic. We are given a graph, g groups of terminals, and a universe of data packets. Each group of terminals desires a subset of the packets from its respective…
In modern network design, "efficiency" is often conflated with raw performance metrics like latency or aggregate throughput. This paper proposes a resource-centric definition of efficiency, isolating the hardware cost required to maintain a…
In the classical (min-cost) Steiner tree problem, we are given an edge-weighted undirected graph and a set of terminal nodes. The goal is to compute a min-cost tree S which spans all terminals. In this paper we consider the min-power…
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…
The congestion pricing is an efficient allocation approach to mediate demand and supply of network resources. Different from the previous pricing using Affine Marginal Cost (AMC), we focus on studying the game between network coding and…
Searching in partially ordered structures has been considered in the context of information retrieval and efficient tree-like indexes, as well as in hierarchy based knowledge representation. In this paper we focus on tree-like partial…
We consider a distributed stochastic optimization problem in networks with finite number of nodes. Each node adjusts its action to optimize the global utility of the network, which is defined as the sum of local utilities of all nodes.…
We study a participatory budgeting problem of aggregating the preferences of agents and dividing a budget over the projects. A budget division solution is a probability distribution over the projects. The main purpose of our study concerns…
This paper studies a fundamental algorithmic problem related to the design of demand-aware networks: networks whose topologies adjust toward the traffic patterns they serve, in an online manner. The goal is to strike a tradeoff between the…
Academic research in the field of recommender systems mainly focuses on the problem of maximizing the users' utility by trying to identify the most relevant items for each user. However, such items are not necessarily the ones that maximize…
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…
The random cost problem is the problem of finding the minimum in an exponentially long list of random numbers. By definition, this problem cannot be solved faster than by exhaustive search. It is shown that a classical NP-hard optimization…
Information in the form of data, which can be stored and transferred between users, can be viewed as an intangible commodity, which can be traded in exchange for money. Determining the fair price at which a string of data should be traded…
We consider the $k$-prize-collecting Steiner tree problem. An instance is composed of an integer $k$ and a graph $G$ with costs on edges and penalties on vertices. The objective is to find a tree spanning at least $k$ vertices which…
This paper investigates third-degree price discrimination under endogenous market segmentation. Segmenting a market requires access to information about consumers, and this information comes with a cost. I explore the trade-offs between the…