Related papers: Blind Number Sequencing
In the paper it is proven that the two-players turn-based stochastic game "Risk or Safety" has a unique solution. Both players need to play the same strategy if they want to maximize their winning chances. An analytical method based on the…
In the streaming model, the order of the stream can significantly affect the difficulty of a problem. A $t$-semirandom stream was introduced as an interpolation between random-order ($t=1$) and adversarial-order ($t=n$) streams where an…
Learning with hidden variables is a central challenge in probabilistic graphical models that has important implications for many real-life problems. The classical approach is using the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. This…
Consider a binary classification problem in which the learner is given a labeled training set, an unlabeled test set, and is restricted to choosing exactly $k$ test points to output as positive predictions. Problems of this kind---{\it…
Internet communication systems involving cryptography and data hiding often require billions of random numbers. In addition to the speed of the algorithm, the quality of the pseudo-random number generator and the ease of its implementation…
Precise recommendation of followers helps in improving the user experience and maintaining the prosperity of twitter and microblog platforms. In this paper, we design a hybrid recommender system of microblog as a solution of KDD Cup 2012,…
The technique of ``testing by betting" frames nonparametric sequential hypothesis testing as a multiple-round game, where a player bets on future observations that arrive in a streaming fashion, accumulates wealth that quantifies evidence…
Prophet inequalities are a central object of study in optimal stopping theory. A gambler is sent values in an online fashion, sampled from an instance of independent distributions, in an adversarial, random or selected order, depending on…
In this paper we examine problems motivated by on-line financial problems and stochastic games. In particular, we consider a sequence of entirely arbitrary distinct values arriving in random order, and must devise strategies for selecting…
Given a social network with diffusion probabilities as edge weights and an integer k, which k nodes should be chosen for initial injection of information to maximize influence in the network? This problem is known as Target Set Selection in…
Random teleportation is a necessary evil for ranking and clustering directed networks based on random walks. Teleportation enables ergodic solutions, but the solutions must necessarily depend on the exact implementation and parametrization…
Several variations of hat guessing games have been popularly discussed in recreational mathematics. In a typical hat guessing game, after initially coordinating a strategy, each of $n$ players is assigned a hat from a given color set.…
The Web has become a large-scale real-time information system forcing us to revise both how to effectively assess relevance of information for a user and how to efficiently implement information retrieval and dissemination functionality. To…
Many artificial intelligences (AIs) are randomized. One can be lucky or unlucky with the random seed; we quantify this effect and show that, maybe contrarily to intuition, this is far from being negligible. Then, we apply two different…
We provide an efficient algorithm to generate random samples from the bounded kth order statistic in a sample of independent, but not necessarily identically distributed, random variables. The bounds can be upper or lower bounds and need…
We show that randomization can lead to significant improvements for a few fundamental problems in distributed tracking. Our basis is the {\em count-tracking} problem, where there are $k$ players, each holding a counter $n_i$ that gets…
Finding a counterfeit coin with the different weight from a set of visually identical coin using a balance, usually a two-armed balance, known as the balance question, is an intersting and inspiring question. Its variants involve…
Driven by applications in telecommunication networks, we explore the simulation task of estimating rare event probabilities for tandem queues in their steady state. Existing literature has recognized that importance sampling methods can be…
Users in social networks whose posts stay at the top of their followers'{} feeds the longest time are more likely to be noticed. Can we design an online algorithm to help them decide when to post to stay at the top? In this paper, we…
Stochastic dominance is a technique for evaluating the performance of online algorithms that provides an intuitive, yet powerful stochastic order between the compared algorithms. Accordingly this holds for bijective analysis, which can be…