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We consider a combinatorial auction setting where buyers have fractionally subadditive (XOS) valuations over the items and the seller's objective is to maximize the social welfare. A prophet inequality in this setting bounds the competitive…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-05-23 Shuchi Chawla , Trung Dang , Zhiyi Huang , Yifan Wang

We introduce a model of competing agents in a prophet setting, where rewards arrive online, and decisions are made immediately and irrevocably. The rewards are unknown from the outset, but they are drawn from a known probability…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-07-02 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ron Kupfer

We study stochastic online resource allocation: a decision maker needs to allocate limited resources to stochastically-generated sequentially-arriving requests in order to maximize reward. At each time step, requests are drawn independently…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-06-26 Santiago Balseiro , Christian Kroer , Rachitesh Kumar

This paper investigates the online conversion problem, which involves sequentially trading a divisible resource (e.g., energy) under dynamically changing prices to maximize profit. A key challenge in online conversion is managing decisions…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-02-07 Yanzhao Wang , Hasti Nourmohammadi Sigaroudi , Bo Sun , Omid Ardakanian , Xiaoqi Tan

This paper considers a finite horizon optimal stopping problem for a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, where the objective is to design stopping rules that attempt to select the random variable with the…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Alexander Goldenshluger , Yaakov Malinovsky , Assaf Zeevi

In this paper, we introduce an over-time variant of the well-known prophet inequality with i.i.d. random variables. Instead of stopping with one realized value at some point in the process, we decide for each step how long we select the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-09-08 Andreas Abels , Elias Pitschmann , Daniel Schmand

We study a variant of the single-choice prophet inequality problem where the decision-maker does not know the underlying distribution and has only access to a set of samples from the distributions. Rubinstein et al. [2020] showed that the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-04 Tomer Ezra

We study the problem of selling identical goods to n unit-demand bidders in a setting in which the total supply of goods is unknown to the mechanism. Items arrive dynamically, and the seller must make the allocation and payment decisions…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2009-05-22 Moshe Babaioff , Liad Blumrosen , Aaron L. Roth

Prophet inequalities are performance guarantees for online algorithms (a.k.a. stopping rules) solving the following "hiring problem": a decision maker sequentially inspects candidates whose values are independent random numbers and is asked…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-05-23 Makis Arsenis , Robert Kleinberg

Optimal stopping theory is a powerful tool for analyzing scenarios such as online auctions in which we generally require optimizing an objective function over the space of stopping rules for an allocation process under uncertainty. Perhaps…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-10-16 Hossein Esfandiari , MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Vahid Liaghat , Morteza Monemizadeh

Prophet inequality concerns a basic optimal stopping problem and states that simple threshold stopping policies -- i.e., accepting the first reward larger than a certain threshold -- can achieve tight $\frac{1}{2}$-approximation to the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-31 Wei Tang , Haifeng Xu , Ruimin Zhang , Derek Zhu

In a prophet inequality problem, $n$ independent random variables are presented to a gambler one by one. The gambler decides when to stop the sequence and obtains the most recent value as reward. We evaluate a stopping rule by the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-11-16 Andrés Cristi , Bruno Ziliotto

Due to numerous applications in retail and (online) advertising the problem of assortment selection has been widely studied under many combinations of discrete choice models and feasibility constraints. In many situations, however, an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-08-11 Vineet Goyal , Salal Humair , Orestis Papadigenopoulos , Assaf Zeevi

We study the problem of fairly allocating indivisible goods to agents in an online setting, where goods arrive sequentially and must be allocated irrevocably. Focusing on the popular fairness notions of envy-freeness, proportionality, and…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-29 Tzeh Yuan Neoh , Jannik Peters , Nicholas Teh

In the classical prophet inequality, a gambler faces a sequence of items, whose values are drawn independently from known distributions. Upon the arrival of each item, its value is realized and the gambler either accepts it and the game…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-04-05 Bo Peng , Zhihao Gavin Tang

Prophet inequalities are fundamental optimal stopping problems, where a decision-maker observes sequentially items with values sampled independently from known distributions, and must decide at each new observation to either stop and gain…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Ziyad Benomar , Dorian Baudry , Vianney Perchet

In the prophet inequality problem, a gambler faces a sequence of items arriving online with values drawn independently from known distributions. On seeing an item, the gambler must choose whether to accept its value as her reward and quit…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Archit Bubna , Ashish Chiplunkar

Suppose a customer is faced with a sequence of fluctuating prices, such as for airfare or a product sold by a large online retailer. Given distributional information about what price they might face each day, how should they choose when to…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-10-10 Hossein Esfandiari , MohammadTaghi HajiAghayi , Brendan Lucier , Michael Mitzenmacher

Many decision processes run for a long and unknown duration: in each round new requests arrive, an irrevocable choice must be made immediately, and the system is judged by ongoing fairness requirements. Examples include food banks…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Ido Kahana , Erel Segal-Halevi , Noam Hazon

In this research we study a finite horizon optimal purchasing problem for items with a mean reverting price process. Under this model a fixed amount of identical items are bought under a given deadline, with the objective of minimizing the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-11-10 Alon Dourban , Liron Yedidsion