Related papers: Comparing experiments in discounted problems
The multinomial model is one of the simplest statistical models. When constraints are placed on the possible values for the probabilities, however, it becomes much more difficult to deal with. Model checking and checking for prior-data…
This paper investigates large-population stochastic control problems in which agents share their state information and cooperate to minimize a convex cost functional. The latter is decomposed into individual and coupling costs, with the…
We consider the problem of strategic classification, where a learner must build a model to classify agents based on features that have been strategically modified. Previous work in this area has concentrated on the case when the learner is…
Traditional statistical theory assumes that the analysis to be performed on a given data set is selected independently of the data themselves. This assumption breaks downs when data are re-used across analyses and the analysis to be…
Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…
When ranking big data observations such as colleges in the United States, diverse consumers reveal heterogeneous preferences. The objective of this paper is to sort out a linear ordering for these observations and to recommend strategies to…
Stable states in complex systems correspond to local minima on the associated potential energy surface. Transitions between these local minima govern the dynamics of such systems. Precisely determining the transition pathways in complex and…
A key issue in the control of distributed discrete systems modeled as Markov decisions processes, is that often the state of the system is not directly observable at any single location in the system. The participants in the control scheme…
Using theory and experiments, this paper shows that the difficulty of making tradeoffs offers a parsimonious explanation for a wide range of behavioral phenomena. We develop a model of imprecise comparisons applicable to multiattribute,…
This paper presents a novel study on gas-like models for economic systems. The interacting agents and the amount of exchanged money at each trade are selected with different levels of randomness, from a purely random way to a more chaotic…
An information based method for solving stochastic control problems with partial observation has been proposed. First, the information-theoretic lower bounds of the cost function has been analysed. It has been shown, under rather weak…
We consider a model for a population in a heterogeneous environment, with logistic type local population dynamics, under the assumption that individuals can switch between two different nonzero rates of diffusion. Such switching behavior…
We study systems of interacting reinforced stochastic processes, where agents' decisions evolve under reinforcement, network-mediated interactions, and environmental influences. In competitive environments with irreducible networks, we…
Stochastic comparisons of series and parallel systems are important in many areas of engineering, operations research and reliability analysis. These comparisons allow for the evaluation of the performance and reliability of systems under…
Emphatic algorithms are temporal-difference learning algorithms that change their effective state distribution by selectively emphasizing and de-emphasizing their updates on different time steps. Recent works by Sutton, Mahmood and White…
In this paper, we investigate the effects of applying generalised (non-exponential) discounting on a long-run impulse control problem for a Feller-Markov process. We show that the optimal value of the discounted problem is the same as the…
The paper deals with a problem of control of a system characterized by the fact that the influence of controls on the dynamics of certain functions of state variables (called observables) is relatively weak and the rates of change of these…
For a sample of Exponentially distributed durations we aim at point estimation and a confidence interval for its parameter. A duration is only observed if it has ended within a certain time interval, determined by a Uniform distribution.…
We provide two methodological insights on \emph{ex ante} policy evaluation for macro models of economic development. First, we show that the problems of parameter instability and lack of behavioral constancy can be overcome by considering…
We present a new way of estimation of the role of chance in achieving success, by comparing the empirical data from 100-meter dash competitions (one of the sports disciplines with the most stringent controls of external randomness), with…