Related papers: An Optimal Selection Problem Associated with the P…
In the classical secretary problem, one attempts to find the maximum of an unknown and unlearnable distribution through sequential search. In many real-world searches, however, distributions are not entirely unknown and can be learned…
First, for the for the submodular $k$-secretary problem with shortlists [1], we provide a near optimal $1-1/e-\epsilon$ approximation using shortlist of size $O(k poly(1/\epsilon))$. In particular, we improve the size of shortlist used in…
In this paper, we present a novel method for computing the asymptotic values of both the optimal threshold, and the probability of success in sequences of optimal stopping problems. This method, based on the resolution of a first-order…
The game of best choice, also known as the secretary problem, is a model for sequential decision making with many variations in the literature. Notably, the classical setup assumes that the sequence of candidate rankings is uniformly…
The Sliding Window Secretary Problem allows a window of choices to the Classical Secretary Problem, in which there is the option to choose the previous $K$ choices immediately prior to the current choice. We consider a case of this…
We study the best-choice problem for processes which generalise the process of records from Poisson-paced i.i.d. observations. Under the assumption that the observer knows distribution of the process and the horizon, we determine the…
In this paper we revisit a fundamental technical issue within the theory of stochastic approximation (SA) in a Markovian framework, first proposed in the book by Djereveckii and Fradkov (1981), and further developed in much detail in the…
The secretary and the prophet inequality problems are central to the field of Stopping Theory. Recently, there has been a lot of work in generalizing these models to multiple items because of their applications in mechanism design. The most…
Suppose we are given integer $k \leq n$ and $n$ boxes labeled $1,\ldots, n$ by an adversary, each containing a number chosen from an unknown distribution. We have to choose an order to sequentially open these boxes, and each time we open…
We study a version of the classical Cayley-Moser optimal stopping problem, in which a seller must sell an asset by a given deadline, with the offers, which are independent random variables with a known distribution, arriving at random…
Online advertising has motivated interest in online selection problems. Displaying ads to the right users benefits both the platform (e.g., via pay-per-click) and the advertisers (by increasing their reach). In practice, not all users click…
In the prophet secretary problem, $n$ values are drawn independently from known distributions, and presented in a uniformly random order. A decision-maker must accept or reject each value when it is presented, and may accept at most $k$…
Let $f = \sum_{k=0}^n \varepsilon_k z^k$ be a random polynomial, where $\varepsilon_0,\ldots ,\varepsilon_n$ are iid standard Gaussian random variables, and let $\zeta_1,\ldots,\zeta_n$ denote the roots of $f$. We show that the point…
As a famous result, the ``37\% Law'' for Secretary Problem has widely influenced peoples' perception on online decision strategies about choice. However, using this strategy, too many attractive candidates may be rejected in the first 37\%,…
Consider two independent Poisson point processes of unit intensity in the Euclidean space of dimension $d$ at least 3. We construct a perfect matching between the two point sets that is a factor (i.e., an equivariant measurable function of…
We take a unifying approach to single selection optimal stopping problems with random arrival order and independent sampling of items. In the problem we consider, a decision maker (DM) initially gets to sample each of $N$ items…
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…
For many online problems, it is known that the uniform arrival order enables the design of algorithms with much better performance guarantees than under worst-case. The quintessential example is the secretary problem. If the sequence of…
We define a new selection problem, \emph{Selecting with History}, which extends the secretary problem to a setting with historical information. We propose a strategy for this problem and calculate its success probability in the limit of a…
We investigate issues related to two hard problems related to voting, the optimal weighted lobbying problem and the winner problem for Dodgson elections. Regarding the former, Christian et al. [CFRS06] showed that optimal lobbying is…