Related papers: Markovian Pandora's box
This paper considers the problem of randomized influence maximization over a Markovian graph process: given a fixed set of nodes whose connectivity graph is evolving as a Markov chain, estimate the probability distribution (over this fixed…
A decisionmaker faces $n$ alternatives, each of which represents a potential reward. After investing costly resources into investigating the alternatives, the decisionmaker may select one, or more generally a feasible subset, and obtain the…
Suppose there are $n$ Markov chains and we need to pay a per-step \emph{price} to advance them. The "destination" states of the Markov chains contain rewards; however, we can only get rewards for a subset of them that satisfy a…
We are interested in risk constraints for infinite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes (MDPs). Starting with average reward MDPs, we show that increasing concave stochastic dominance constraints on the empirical distribution of…
The Pandora's Box problem and its extensions capture optimization problems with stochastic input where the algorithm can obtain instantiations of input random variables at some cost. To our knowledge, all previous work on this class of…
We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…
We develop an algorithmic framework to incorporate "ex-ante" constraints on outcomes (that hold only on average) into stateful sequential search with costly inspection. Our framework encompasses the classical Weitzman's Pandora's box…
The Pandora's Box problem models the search for the best alternative when evaluation is costly. In the simplest variant, a decision maker is presented with $n$ boxes, each associated with a cost of inspection and a hidden random reward. The…
We revisit the classic Pandora's Box (PB) problem under correlated distributions on the box values. Recent work of arXiv:1911.01632 obtained constant approximate algorithms for a restricted class of policies for the problem that visit boxes…
Pandora's Box is a central problem in decision making under uncertainty that can model various real life scenarios. In this problem we are given $n$ boxes, each with a fixed opening cost, and an unknown value drawn from a known…
The Pandora's Box Problem, originally formalized by Weitzman in 1979, models selection from set of random, alternative options, when evaluation is costly. This includes, for example, the problem of hiring a skilled worker, where only one…
Pandora's Box is a fundamental stochastic optimization problem, where the decision-maker must find a good alternative while minimizing the search cost of exploring the value of each alternative. In the original formulation, it is assumed…
This paper considers stochastic-constrained stochastic optimization where the stochastic constraint is to satisfy that the expectation of a random function is below a certain threshold. In particular, we study the setting where data samples…
We analyze the complexity of learning directed acyclic graphical models from observational data in general settings without specific distributional assumptions. Our approach is information-theoretic and uses a local Markov boundary search…
A key challenge in science and engineering is to design experiments to learn about some unknown quantity of interest. Classical experimental design optimally allocates the experimental budget to maximize a notion of utility (e.g., reduction…
We investigate the classical active pure exploration problem in Markov Decision Processes, where the agent sequentially selects actions and, from the resulting system trajectory, aims at identifying the best policy as fast as possible. We…
Motivated by wide-ranging applications such as video delivery over networks using Multiple Description Codes, congestion control, and inventory management, we study the state-tracking of a Markovian random process with a known transition…
Analysis of algorithms on time-varying networks (often called evolving graphs) is a modern challenge in theoretical computer science. The edge-Markovian is a relatively simple and comprehensive model of evolving graphs: every pair of…
Markov decision processes are typically used for sequential decision making under uncertainty. For many aspects however, ranging from constrained or safe specifications to various kinds of temporal (non-Markovian) dependencies in task and…
We consider the problem of learning a directed graph $G^\star$ from observational data. We assume that the distribution which gives rise to the samples is Markov and faithful to the graph $G^\star$ and that there are no unobserved…