Related papers: Pandora's Problem with Nonobligatory Inspection
We study the $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-PAC policy identification problem in finite-horizon episodic Markov Decision Processes. Existing approaches provide finite-time guarantees for approximate settings ($\varepsilon>0$) but suffer from high…
In this paper, we assume an insure is allowed to purchase proportional reinsurance and can invest his or her wealth into the financial market where a savings account, stocks and bonds are available. Different from classical optimal…
We study reward design strategies for incentivizing a reinforcement learning agent to adopt a policy from a set of admissible policies. The goal of the reward designer is to modify the underlying reward function cost-efficiently while…
We investigate the role of commitment in optimal stopping by studying all the variants between Prophet Inequality (PI) and Pandora's Box (PB). Both problems deal with a set of variables drawn from known distributions. In PI the gambler…
Optimising queries in real-world situations under imperfect conditions is still a problem that has not been fully solved. We consider finding the optimal order in which to execute a given set of selection operators under partial ignorance…
Approximation algorithms for classical constraint satisfaction problems are one of the main research areas in theoretical computer science. Here we define a natural approximation version of the QMA-complete local Hamiltonian problem and…
Candidates arrive sequentially for an interview process which results in them being ranked relative to their predecessors. Based on the ranks available at each time, one must develop a decision mechanism that selects or dismisses the…
We consider the infinite-horizon discounted optimal control problem formalized by Markov Decision Processes. We focus on several approximate variations of the Policy Iteration algorithm: Approximate Policy Iteration, Conservative Policy…
As data-driven predictive models are increasingly used to inform decisions, it has been argued that decision makers should provide explanations that help individuals understand what would have to change for these decisions to be beneficial…
We present an efficient reinforcement learning algorithm that learns the optimal admission control policy in a partially observable queueing network. Specifically, only the arrival and departure times from the network are observable, and…
We consider the problem of allocating indivisible goods fairly among n agents who have additive and submodular valuations for the goods. Our fairness guarantees are in terms of the maximin share, that is defined to be the maximum value that…
We study query and computationally efficient planning algorithms with linear function approximation and a simulator. We assume that the agent only has local access to the simulator, meaning that the agent can only query the simulator at…
Optimal stopping is the problem of deciding when to stop a stochastic system to obtain the greatest reward, arising in numerous application areas such as finance, healthcare and marketing. State-of-the-art methods for high-dimensional…
The Secretary problem is a classical sequential decision-making question that can be succinctly described as follows: a set of rank-ordered applicants are interviewed sequentially for a single position. Once an applicant is interviewed, an…
We study the distortion of one-sided and two-sided matching problems on the line. In the one-sided case, $n$ agents need to be matched to $n$ items, and each agent's cost in a matching is their distance from the item they were matched to.…
A common technique in reinforcement learning is to evaluate the value function from Monte Carlo simulations of a given policy, and use the estimated value function to obtain a new policy which is greedy with respect to the estimated value…
We study a fundamental problem in optimization under uncertainty. There are $n$ boxes; each box $i$ contains a hidden reward $x_i$. Rewards are drawn i.i.d. from an unknown distribution $\mathcal{D}$. For each box $i$, we see $y_i$, an…
A default assumption in the design of reinforcement-learning algorithms is that a decision-making agent always explores to learn optimal behavior. In sufficiently complex environments that approach the vastness and scale of the real world,…
In the theory of Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs), existence of optimal policies have in general been established via converting the original partially observed stochastic control problem to a fully observed one on the…
Personalized pricing analytics is becoming an essential tool in retailing. Upon observing the personalized information of each arriving customer, the firm needs to set a price accordingly based on the covariates such as income, education…