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We consider the fundamental problem of selecting $k$ out of $n$ random variables in a way that the expected highest or second-highest value is maximized. This question captures several applications where we have uncertainty about the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-12-16 Aranyak Mehta , Uri Nadav , Alexandros Psomas , Aviad Rubinstein

Propositional satisfiability (SAT) is one of the most fundamental problems in computer science. The worst-case hardness of SAT lies at the core of computational complexity theory. The average-case analysis of SAT has triggered the…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2019-05-03 Tobias Friedrich , Anton Krohmer , Ralf Rothenberger , Thomas Sauerwald , Andrew M. Sutton

In the single stock trading prophet problem formulated by Correa et al.\ (2023), an online algorithm observes a sequence of prices of a stock. At each step, the algorithm can either buy the stock by paying the current price if it doesn't…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-04-21 Surbhi Rajput , Ashish Chiplunkar , Rohit Vaish

Sampling is a fundamental problem in computer science and statistics. However, for a given task and stream, it is often not possible to choose good sampling probabilities in advance. We derive a general framework for adaptively changing the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-06-16 Daniel Ting

We consider the prophet inequality problem for (not necessarily bipartite) matching problems with independent edge values, under both edge arrivals and vertex arrivals. We show constant-factor prophet inequalities for the case where the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-08-03 Paul Dütting , Federico Fusco , Philip Lazos , Stefano Leonardi , Rebecca Reiffenhäuser

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…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-02-06 Martin Hoefer , Lisa Wilhelmi

When modifying existing policies in high-risk settings, it is often necessary to ensure with high certainty that the newly proposed policy improves upon a baseline, such as the status quo. In this work, we consider the problem of safe…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-23 Brian M Cho , Ana-Roxana Pop , Kyra Gan , Sam Corbett-Davies , Israel Nir , Ariel Evnine , Nathan Kallus

We study a "pen testing" problem, in which we are given $n$ pens with unknown amounts of ink $X_1, X_2, \ldots, X_n$, and we want to choose a pen with the maximum amount of remaining ink in it. The challenge is that we cannot access each…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-11-23 Mingda Qiao , Gregory Valiant

We consider \textsc{Persistence}, a new online problem concerning optimizing weighted observations in a stream of data when the observer has limited buffer capacity. A stream of weighted items arrive one at a time at the entrance of a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2016-04-12 Konstantinos Georgiou , George Karakostas , Evangelos Kranakis , Danny Krizanc

We study the submodular secretary problem with a cardinality constraint. In this problem, $n$ candidates for secretaries appear sequentially in random order. At the arrival of each candidate, a decision maker must irrevocably decide whether…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-05-14 Kaito Fujii

The Bayesian persuasion paradigm of strategic communication models interaction between a privately-informed agent, called the sender, and an ignorant but rational agent, called the receiver. The goal is typically to design a (near-)optimal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-06-21 Ronen Gradwohl , Niklas Hahn , Martin Hoefer , Rann Smorodinsky

We study a wholesale supply chain ordering problem. In this problem, the supplier has an initial stock, and faces an unpredictable stream of incoming orders, making real-time decisions on whether to accept or reject each order. What makes…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-04-08 Will Ma , David Simchi-Levi , Jinglong Zhao

When allocating indivisible items to agents, it is known that the only strategyproof mechanisms that satisfy a set of rather mild conditions are constrained serial dictatorships: given a fixed order over agents, at each step the designated…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-28 Sylvain Bouveret , Hugo Gilbert , Jérôme Lang , Guillaume Méroué

In the "secretary problem", well-known in the theory of optimal stopping, an employer is about to interview a maximum of N secretaries about which she has no prior information. Chow et al. proved that with an optimal strategy the expected…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Kimmo Eriksson , Jonas Sjostrand , Pontus Strimling

In the realm of robust optimization the k-adaptability approach is one promising method to derive approximate solutions for two-stage robust optimization problems. Instead of allowing all possible second-stage decisions, the k-adaptability…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-04 Jannis Kurtz

Process capability indices such as $C_{pk}$ are widely used in manufacturing quality control to support supplier qualification and product release decisions based on fixed acceptance thresholds (e.g., $C_{pk} \geq 1.33$). In practice, these…

Applications · Statistics 2026-03-13 Fei Jiang , Lei Yang

In submodular $k$-secretary problem, the goal is to select $k$ items in a randomly ordered input so as to maximize the expected value of a given monotone submodular function on the set of selected items. In this paper, we introduce a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-09-18 Shipra Agrawal , Mohammad Shadravan , Cliff Stein

This work investigates a dynamic variant of Bayesian persuasion, in which a strategic sender seeks to influence a receiver's belief over time through controlling the timing of the information disclosure, under resource constraints. We…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Ahmet Bugra Gundogan , Melih Bastopcu

We study the problem of information provision by a strategic central planner who can publicly signal about an uncertain infectious risk parameter. Signalling leads to an updated public belief over the parameter, and agents then make…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2022-05-06 Sohil Shah , Saurabh Amin , Patrick Jaillet

In the secretary problem, a set of secretary candidates arrive in a uniformly random order and reveal their values one by one. A company, who can only hire one candidate and hopes to maximize the expected value of its hire, needs to make…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-02-16 Mohammad Mahdian , Jieming Mao , Enze Sun , Kangning Wang , Yifan Wang