Related papers: The slowest coupon collector's problem
We study a labeled variant of the classical Coupon Collector Problem (CCP), recently introduced by Tan et al., where coupons arrive in groups and only the set of labels is revealed. The goal is to determine the expected number of group…
We address a conjecture of Schilling concerning the optimality of the uniform distribution in the generalized Coupon Collector's Problem (CCP) where, in each round, a subset (package) of $s$ coupons is drawn from a total of $n$ distinct…
A basic question in the PAC model of learning is whether proper learning is harder than improper learning. In the classical case, there are examples of concept classes with VC dimension $d$ that have sample complexity $\Omega\left(\frac…
The article explores the asymptotic behavior of the expected number of drawings in the Coupon Collector's Problem with group-drawing under the uniform distribution. In this variant, each draw consists of a package of $s$ distinct coupons…
The following problem is considered. Two players are each required to allocate a quota of~$n$ counters among~$k$ boxes labelled~$1,2,\ldots,k$. At times $t=1,2,3,\ldots$ a random box is identified; the probability of choosing box~$i$…
The following variant of the collector's problem has attracted considerable attention relatively recently (see, e.g., N. Pintacuda 1980, D. Foata H. Guo-Niu and B. Lass 2001, D. Foata and D. Zeilberger 2003, I. Adler, S. Oren and S. Ross…
An increasing number of communication and computational schemes with quantum advantages have recently been proposed, which implies that quantum technology has fertile application prospects. However, demonstrating these schemes…
The classic Coupon-Collector Problem (CCP) is generalized to the extent that each coupons serves certain "purposes". Only basic probability theory is used. Centerpiece rather is an algorithm that efficiently counts all $k$-element…
Motivated by applications in bioinformatics, we consider the word collector problem, i.e. the expected number of calls to a random weighted generator of words of length $n$ before the full collection is obtained. The originality of this…
The Cookie Monster Problem supposes that the Cookie Monster wants to empty a set of jars filled with various numbers of cookies. On each of his moves, he may choose any subset of jars and take the same number of cookies from each of those…
In this paper the coupon collector's problem with group drawings is studied. Assume there are $ n $ different coupons. At each time precisely $ s $ of the $ n $ coupons are drawn, where all choices are supposed to have equal probability.…
We study how efficiently a $k$-element set $S\subseteq[n]$ can be learned from a uniform superposition $|S\rangle$ of its elements. One can think of $|S\rangle=\sum_{i\in S}|i\rangle/\sqrt{|S|}$ as the quantum version of a uniformly random…
A collector wishes to collect $m$ complete sets of $N$ distinct coupons. The draws from the population are considered to be independent and identical distributed with replacement, and the probability that a type-$j$ coupon is drawn is noted…
We extend the Coupon Collector's Problem (CCP) and present a novel generalized model, referred as the k-LCCP problem, where one is interested in recovering a bipartite graph with a perfect matching, which represents the coupons and their…
Based upon inequalities on Subset Probabilities, proofs of several conjectures on the Generalized Coupon Collector Problem (i.e. CCP with unequal popularity) are presented. Then we derive a very simple asymptotic relation between the…
A collector samples coupons with replacement from a pool containing $g$ \textit{uniform} groups of coupons, where "uniform group" means that all coupons in the group are equally likely to occur. For each $j = 1, \dots, g$ let $T_j$ be the…
An {\it Omnibus Sequence} of length $n$ is one that has each possible "message" of length $k$ embedded in it as a subsequence. We study various properties of Omnibus Sequences in this paper, making connections, whenever possible, to the…
In this paper we provide formulas for the expectation of a conditional game duration in a finite state-space one-dimensional gambler's ruin problem with arbitrary winning $p(n)$ and losing $q(n)$ probabilities (i.e., they depend on the…
The aim of this paper is to solve the "gift exchange" problem: you are one of n players, and there are n wrapped gifts on display; when your turn comes, you can either choose any of the remaining wrapped gifts, or you can "steal" a gift…
Order picking is the problem of collecting a set of products in a warehouse in a minimum amount of time. It is currently a major bottleneck in supply-chain because of its cost in time and labor force. This article presents two exact and…