Related papers: The slowest coupon collector's problem
Consider the coupon collector problem where each box of a brand of cereal contains a coupon and there are n different types of coupons. Suppose that the probability of a box containing a coupon of a specific type is $1/n$ and that we keep…
The Coupon Collector Problem (CCP) is a well-known combinatorial problem that seeks to estimate the number of random draws required to complete a collection of $n$ distinct coupon types. Various generalizations of this problem have been…
In this note, we introduce a distributed twist on the classic coupon collector problem: a set of $m$ collectors wish to each obtain a set of $n$ coupons; for this, they can each sample coupons uniformly at random, but can also meet in…
We study in this paper a generalized coupon collector problem, which consists in analyzing the time needed to collect a given number of distinct coupons that are drawn from a set of coupons with an arbitrary probability distribution. We…
This paper is about the Coupon collector's problem. There are some coupons, or baseball cards, or other plastic knick-knacks that are put into bags of chips or under soda bottles, etc. A collector starts collecting these trinkets and wants…
We extend the classical coupon collector's problem to one in which two collectors are simultaneously and independently seeking collections of $d$ coupons. We find, in finite terms, the probability that the two collectors finish at the same…
We consider a generalisation of the classical coupon collector's problem, in which at each time step a collector either receives a new copy of a randomly chosen coupon, or loses all their previously collected copies of that coupon. We…
We generalize the well-known Coupon Collector Problem (CCP) in combinatorics. Our problem is to find the minimum and expected number of draws, with replacement, required to recover $n$ distinctly labeled coupons, with each draw consisting…
In this note we evaluate the expected waiting time to complete a collection of coupons, in the case of coupons which arrives in groups of constant size, independently and with unequal probabilities. As an application we will be able to…
Motivated by a problem in the theory of randomized search heuristics, we give a very precise analysis for the coupon collector problem where the collector starts with a random set of coupons (chosen uniformly from all sets). We show that…
This paper provides analysis to a generalized version of the coupon collector problem, in which the collector gets $d$ distinct coupons each run and she chooses the one that she has the least so far. On the asymptotic case when the number…
In this note we evaluate the expectation and variance of the waiting time to complete $m$ parallel collections of coupons, in the case of coupons which arrives independently, one by one and with equal probabilities.
To reduce computational complexity and delay in randomized network coded content distribution (and for some other practical reasons), coding is not performed simultaneously over all content blocks but over much smaller subsets known as…
We consider a generalisation of the classical coupon collector problem. We define a super-coupon to be any $s$-subset of a universe of $n$ coupons. In each round, a random $r$-subset from the universe is drawn and all its $s$-subsets are…
The paper introduces a modified version of the classical Coupon Collector's Problem entailing exchanges and cooperation between multiple players. Results of the development show that, within a proper Markov framework, the complexity of the…
This Ph.D. thesis concerns the version of the classical coupon collector's problem, when a collector samples with replacement a set of $n\ge 2$ distinct coupons so that at each time any one of the $n$ coupons is drawn with the same…
The locker puzzle is a game played by multiple players against a referee. It has been previously shown that the best strategy that exists cannot succeed with probability greater than 1-ln2 \approx 0.31, no matter how many players are…
A popular variant of the collector's problem is the following: Assume there are $N$ different types of coupons with equal occurring probabilities. There is one main collector who collects coupons. When she gets a "double," she gives it to…
We examine the negative occupancy distribution and the coupon-collector distribution, both of which arise as distributions relating to hitting times in the extended occupancy problem. These distributions constitute a full solution to a…
We initiate the study of the Careless Coupon Collector's Problem (CCCP), a novel variation of the classical coupon collector, that we envision as a model for information systems such as web crawlers, dynamic caches, and fault-resilient…