Related papers: Combinatorial Markov Search
We study very simple sorting algorithms based on a probabilistic comparator model. In our model, errors in comparing two elements are due to (1) the energy or effort put in the comparison and (2) the difference between the compared…
In a prophet inequality problem, $n$ independent random variables are presented to a gambler one by one. The gambler decides when to stop the sequence and obtains the most recent value as reward. We evaluate a stopping rule by the…
Selection problems with costly information, dating back to Weitzman's Pandora's Box problem, have received much attention recently. We study the general model of Costly Information Combinatorial Selection (CICS) that was recently introduced…
We present a general framework for stochastic online maximization problems with combinatorial feasibility constraints. The framework establishes prophet inequalities by constructing price-based online approximation algorithms, a natural…
Competition complexity formalizes a compelling intuition: rather than refining the mechanism, how much additional competition is sufficient for a simple mechanism to compete with an optimal one? We begin the study of this question in…
In the Markov decision process model, policies are usually evaluated by expected cumulative rewards. As this decision criterion is not always suitable, we propose in this paper an algorithm for computing a policy optimal for the quantile…
Combinatorial Auctions are a central problem in Algorithmic Mechanism Design: pricing and allocating goods to buyers with complex preferences in order to maximize some desired objective (e.g., social welfare, revenue, or profit). The…
We consider the problem of a decision-maker searching for information on multiple alternatives when information is learned on all alternatives simultaneously. The decision-maker has a running cost of searching for information, and has to…
In a sponsored search auction the advertisement slots on a search result page are generally ordered by click-through rate. Bidders have a valuation, which is usually assumed to be linear in the click-through rate, a budget constraint, and…
We consider a combinatorial auction setting where buyers have fractionally subadditive (XOS) valuations over the items and the seller's objective is to maximize the social welfare. A prophet inequality in this setting bounds the competitive…
We study infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) where the decision maker evaluates each of her strategies by aggregating the infinite stream of expected stage-rewards. The crucial feature of our approach is that the aggregation…
In Combinatorial Public Projects, there is a set of projects that may be undertaken, and a set of self-interested players with a stake in the set of projects chosen. A public planner must choose a subset of these projects, subject to a…
The paper addresses the problem of computing maximal conditional expected accumulated rewards until reaching a target state (briefly called maximal conditional expectations) in finite-state Markov decision processes where the condition is…
We study \emph{combinatorial procurement auctions}, where a buyer with a valuation function $v$ and budget $B$ wishes to buy a set of items. Each item $i$ has a cost $c_i$ and the buyer is interested in a set $S$ that maximizes $v(S)$…
Searching for objects amongst clutter is a key ability of visual systems. Speed and accuracy are often crucial: how can the visual system trade off these competing quantities for optimal performance in different tasks? How does the…
In classic reinforcement learning (RL) and decision making problems, policies are evaluated with respect to a scalar reward function, and all optimal policies are the same with regards to their expected return. However, many real-world…
We consider a discrete-time Markov decision process with Borel state and action spaces. The performance criterion is to maximize a total expected {utility determined by unbounded return function. It is shown the existence of optimal…
For the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, there exist Markov strategies which solve the problem when we restrict attention to the long term average payoff. When used by both players these assure the cooperative payoff for each of them. Neither…
In a classical online decision problem, a decision-maker who is trying to maximize her value inspects a sequence of arriving items to learn their values (drawn from known distributions), and decides when to stop the process by taking the…
Consider a gambler who observes a sequence of independent, non-negative random numbers and is allowed to stop the sequence at any time, claiming a reward equal to the most recent observation. The famous prophet inequality of Krengel,…