Related papers: A note on last-success-problems
This paper presents a new exponential lower bound for the two most popular deterministic variants of the strategy improvement algorithms for solving parity, mean payoff, discounted payoff and simple stochastic games. The first variant…
Bayesian, classical, and extended maximum likelihood approaches to estimation of upper limits in experiments with small numbers of signal events are surveyed. The discussion covers only experiments whose outcomes are well described by a…
Let $b(x)$ be the probability that a sum of independent Bernoulli random variables with parameters $p_1, p_2, p_3, \ldots \in [0,1)$ equals $x$, where $\lambda := p_1 + p_2 + p_3 + \cdots$ is finite. We prove two inequalities for the…
Consider a discrete-time optimal selection problem where one observes a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials and receives a nonnegative reward upon stopping on a success. The aim is to find a single-choice strategy that maximises the…
Consider a setting with $N$ independent individuals, each with an unknown parameter, $p_i \in [0, 1]$ drawn from some unknown distribution $P^\star$. After observing the outcomes of $t$ independent Bernoulli trials, i.e., $X_i \sim…
This is a short survey on existing upper and lower bounds on the probability of the union of a finite number of events using partial information given in terms of the individual or pairwise event probabilities (or their sums). New proofs…
One aspect of Poisson approximation is that the support of the random variable of interest is often finite while the support of the Poisson distribution is not. In this paper we will remedy this by examining truncated negative binomial (of…
This paper develops upper and lower bounds for the probability of Boolean functions by treating multiple occurrences of variables as independent and assigning them new individual probabilities. We call this approach dissociation and give an…
We propose an online algorithm for cumulative regret minimization in a stochastic multi-armed bandit. The algorithm adds $O(t)$ i.i.d. pseudo-rewards to its history in round $t$ and then pulls the arm with the highest average reward in its…
Given a linear system, we consider the problem of finding a small set of variables to affect with an input so that the resulting system is controllable. We show that this problem is NP-hard; indeed, we show that even approximating the…
This article is a survey of results concerning an inequality, which may be seen as a versatile tool to solve problems in the domain of Applied Probability. The inequality, which we call BRS-inequality, gives a convenient upper bound for the…
Let $(\xi_i)_{i=1,...,n}$ be a sequence of independent and symmetric random variables. We consider the upper bounds on tail probabilities of self-normalized deviations $$ \mathbf{P} \Big( \max_{1\leq k \leq n} \sum_{i=1}^{k} |\xi_i|\big/…
This paper develops upper and lower bounds for the probability of Boolean expressions by treating multiple occurrences of variables as independent and assigning them new individual probabilities. Our technique generalizes and extends the…
Given natural parameters s and r, where $2\leq s\leq r$, we consider the distribution of a random variable $\xi=\sum\limits_{k=1}^{\infty}s^{-k}\xi_k\equiv\Delta^{r_s}_{\xi_1\xi_2...\xi_k...},$ where $(\xi_k)$ is a sequence of independent…
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…
In this note we obtain lower bounds for $\P(\xi\geq 0)$ and $\P(\xi>0)$ under assumptions on the moments of a centered random variable $\xi$. The obtained estimates are shown to be optimal and improve results from the literature. The…
This paper analyzes a simple game with $n$ players. We fix a mean, $\mu$, in the interval $[0, 1]$ and let each player choose any random variable distributed on that interval with the given mean. The winner of the zero-sum game is the…
This paper revisits the classical problem of determining the bias of a weighted coin, where the bias is known to be either $p = 1/2 + \varepsilon$ or $p = 1/2 - \varepsilon$, while minimizing the expected number of coin tosses and the error…
We study concurrent graph games where n players cooperate against an opponent to reach a set of target states. Unlike traditional settings, we study distributed randomisation: team players do not share a source of randomness, and their…
In this paper we give an exponential lower bound for Cunningham's least recently considered (round-robin) rule as applied to parity games, Markhov decision processes and linear programs. This improves a recent subexponential bound of…