Related papers: Secretary problem and two almost the same consecut…
In the classical secretary problem, one attempts to find the maximum of an unknown and unlearnable distribution through sequential search. In many real-world searches, however, distributions are not entirely unknown and can be learned…
We take a unifying approach to single selection optimal stopping problems with random arrival order and independent sampling of items. In the problem we consider, a decision maker (DM) initially gets to sample each of $N$ items…
A version of the secretary problem called the duration problem, in which the objective is to maximize the time of possession of relatively best objects or the second best, is treated. It is shown that in this duration problem there are…
We study online secretary problems with returns in combinatorial packing domains with $n$ candidates that arrive sequentially over time in random order. The goal is to accept a feasible packing of candidates of maximum total value. In the…
Suppose that $n$ items arrive online in random order and the goal is to select $k$ of them such that the expected sum of the selected items is maximized. The decision for any item is irrevocable and must be made on arrival without knowing…
Let us call a sequence of numbers heapable if they can be sequentially inserted to form a binary tree with the heap property, where each insertion subsequent to the first occurs at a leaf of the tree, i.e. below a previously placed number.…
We study a generalization of the secretary problem, where decisions do not have to be made immediately upon candidates' arrivals. After arriving, each candidate stays in the system for some (random) amount of time and then leaves, whereupon…
As a famous result, the ``37\% Law'' for Secretary Problem has widely influenced peoples' perception on online decision strategies about choice. However, using this strategy, too many attractive candidates may be rejected in the first 37\%,…
We consider generalizations of the classical secretary problem, also known as the problem of optimal choice, to posets where the only information we have is the size of the poset and the number of maximal elements. We show that, given this…
We consider the secretary problem through the lens of learning-augmented algorithms. As it is known that the best possible expected competitive ratio is $1/e$ in the classic setting without predictions, a natural goal is to design…
We revisit three fundamental problems in algorithms under uncertainty: the Secretary Problem, Prophet Inequality, and Stochastic Probing, each subject to general downward-closed constraints. When elements have binary values, all three…
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…
We study various generalizations of the secretary problem with submodular objective functions. Generally, a set of requests is revealed step-by-step to an algorithm in random order. For each request, one option has to be selected so as to…
This note considers a variation of the full-information secretary problem where the random variables to be observed are independent and identically distributed. Consider $X_1,\dots,X_n$ to be an independent sequence of random variables, let…
In the Prophet Secretary problem, samples from a known set of probability distributions arrive one by one in a uniformly random order, and an algorithm must irrevocably pick one of the samples as soon as it arrives. The goal is to maximize…
Many online problems are studied in stochastic settings for which inputs are samples from a known distribution, given in advance, or from an unknown distribution. Such distributions model both beyond-worst-case inputs and, when given,…
Given integers $1\leq k<n$, the Gusein-Zade version of a generalized secretary problem is to choose one of the $k$ best of $n$ candidates for a secretary, which are interviewing in random order. The stopping rule in the selection is based…
One way to interpret the classical secretary problem (CSP) is to consider it as a special case of the following problem. We observe $n$ independent indicator variables $I_1,I_2,\dotsc,I_n$ sequentially and we try to stop on the last…
The classical secretary problem has been generalized over the years into several directions. In this paper we confine our interest to those generalizations which have to do with the more general problem of stopping on a last observation of…
The secretary problem is probably the purest model of decision making under uncertainty. In this paper we ask which advice can we give the algorithm to improve its success probability? We propose a general model that unifies a broad range…