Related papers: Tournaments with a Standard
We study a decision-maker's problem of finding optimal monetary incentive schemes for retention when faced with agents whose participation decisions (stochastically) depend on the incentive they receive. Our focus is on policies constrained…
The classical constant-sum 'silent duel' game had two antagonistic marksmen walking towards each other. A more friendly formulation has two equally skilled marksmen approaching targets at which they may silently fire at distances of their…
We consider normal-form games with $n$ players and two strategies for each player, where the payoffs are i.i.d. random variables with some distribution $F$ and we consider issues related to the pure equilibria in the game as the number of…
Stochastic transitivity is central for rank aggregation based on pairwise comparison data. The existing models, including the Thurstone, Bradley-Terry (BT), and nonparametric BT models, adopt a strong notion of stochastic transitivity,…
Shortlisting is a common and effective method for pre-selecting participants in competitive settings. To ensure fairness, a cut-off score is typically announced, allowing only contestants who exceed it to enter the contest, while others are…
We studied spatial Prisoner's Dilemma and Stag Hunt games where both the strategy distribution and the players' individual noise level could evolve to reach higher individual payoff. Players are located on the sites of different…
In this work we completely characterize how the frequency with which each player participates in the game dynamics affects the possibility of reaching efficient states, i.e., states with an approximation ratio within a constant factor from…
We revisit random search for stochastic optimization, where only noisy function evaluations are available. We show that the method works under weaker smoothness assumptions than previously considered, and that stronger assumptions enable…
Auctions in which agents' payoffs are random variables have received increased attention in recent years. In particular, recent work in algorithmic mechanism design has produced mechanisms employing internal randomization, partly in…
Reward design is a critical part of the application of reinforcement learning, the performance of which strongly depends on how well the reward signal frames the goal of the designer and how well the signal assesses progress in reaching…
We consider the problem of estimating the probability matrix governing a tournament or linkage in graphs from incomplete observations, under the assumption that the probability matrix satisfies natural monotonicity constraints after being…
We study the problem of scheduling periodic real-time tasks so as to meet their individual minimum reward requirements. A task generates jobs that can be given arbitrary service times before their deadlines. A task then obtains rewards…
When selling many goods with independent valuations, we develop a distributionally robust framework, consisting of a two-player game between seller and nature. The seller has only limited knowledge about the value distribution. The seller…
We consider a Bradley-Terry model in random environment where each player faces each other once. More precisely the strengths of the players are assumed to be random and we study the influence of their distributions on the asymptotic number…
We consider a symmetric two-player contest, in which the choice set of effort is constrained. We apply a fundamental property of the payoff function to show that, under standard assumptions, there exists a unique Nash equilibrium in pure…
We consider collaborative systems where users make contributions across multiple available projects and are rewarded for their contributions in individual projects according to a local sharing of the value produced. This serves as a model…
An indivisible object may be sold to one of $n$ agents who know their valuations of the object. The seller would like to use a revenue-maximizing mechanism but her knowledge of the valuations' distribution is scarce: she knows only the…
This paper studies a class of strongly monotone games involving non-cooperative agents that optimize their own time-varying cost functions. We assume that the agents can observe other agents' historical actions and choose actions that best…
There is a movement in design of experiments away from the classic randomization put forward by Fisher, Cochran and others to one based on optimization. In fixed-sample trials comparing two groups, measurements of subjects are known in…
This paper studies a sequential decision problem where payoff distributions are known and where the riskiness of payoffs matters. Equivalently, it studies sequential choice from a repeated set of independent lotteries. The decision-maker is…