Related papers: The Labeled Coupon Collector Problem
We consider a variant of the set covering problem with uncertain parameters, which we refer to as the chance-constrained set multicover problem (CC-SMCP). In this problem, we assume that there is uncertainty regarding whether a selected set…
The Generalised Travelling Salesman Problem (GTSP) is a well-known problem that, among other applications, arises in warehouse order picking, where each stock is distributed between several locations -- a typical approach in large modern…
Mixture of linear regressions is a popular learning theoretic model that is used widely to represent heterogeneous data. In the simplest form, this model assumes that the labels are generated from either of two different linear models and…
In this paper, we show how to use stochastic approximation to compute hitting time of a stochastic process, based on the study of the time for a fluid approximation of this process to be at distance 1/N of its fixed point. This approach is…
This paper investigates the column generation (CG) for solving cutting stock problems (CSP). Traditional CG method, which repeatedly solves a restricted master problem (RMP), often suffers from two critical issues in practice -- the loss of…
Motivated by a problem in population genetics, we examine the combinatorics of dissimilarity for pairs of random unordered draws of multiple objects, with replacement, from a collection of distinct objects. Consider two draws of size $K$…
Pen testing is the problem of selecting high-capacity resources when the only way to measure the capacity of a resource expends its capacity. We have a set of $n$ pens with unknown amounts of ink and our goal is to select a feasible subset…
Continual learning from a sequential stream of data is a crucial challenge for machine learning research. Most studies have been conducted on this topic under the single-label classification setting along with an assumption of balanced…
The Resource Constrained Shortest Path Problem (RCSPP) is a fundamental combinatorial optimisation problem in which the goal is to find a least-cost path in a directed graph subject to one or more resource constraints. In this paper we…
Gathering training data is a key step of any supervised learning task, and it is both critical and expensive. Critical, because the quantity and quality of the training data has a high impact on the performance of the learned function.…
We consider the problem of block-coded communication, where in each block, the channel law belongs to one of two disjoint sets. The decoder is aimed to decode only messages that have undergone a channel from one of the sets, and thus has to…
The cocktail party problem refers to the famous selective attention problem of how to find out the signal of each individual sources from signals of a number of detectors. In the classical cocktail party problem, the signal of each source…
This is a survey paper on Poisson approximation using Stein's method of exchangeable pairs. We illustrate using Poisson-binomial trials and many variations on three classical problems of combinatorial probability: the matching problem, the…
Recently, there has been a burst in the number of research projects on human computation via crowdsourcing. Multiple choice (or labeling) questions could be referred to as a common type of problem which is solved by this approach. As an…
Chance-constrained programming (CCP) is one of the most difficult classes of optimization problems that has attracted the attention of researchers since the 1950s. In this survey, we focus on cases when only a limited information on the…
Online electronic coupon (e-coupon) is becoming a primary tool for e-commerce platforms to attract users to place orders. E-coupons are the digital equivalent of traditional paper coupons which provide customers with discounts or gifts. One…
This paper analyzes a necessary and sufficient condition for the change-making problem to be solvable with a greedy algorithm. The change-making problem is to minimize the number of coins used to pay a given value in a specified currency…
We consider a decentralized graph coloring model where each vertex only knows its own color and whether some neighbor has the same color as it. The networking community has studied this model extensively due to its applications to channel…
We address the problem of computing the distribution of induced connected subgraphs, aka \emph{graphlets} or \emph{motifs}, in large graphs. The current state-of-the-art algorithms estimate the motif counts via uniform sampling, by…
Optimization problems involving complex variables, when solved, are typically transformed into real variables, often at the expense of convergence rate and interpretability. This paper introduces a novel formalism for a prominent problem in…