Related papers: About a Ball Removal Process on Bins
Probabilistic inference algorithms for finding the most probable explanation, the maximum aposteriori hypothesis, and the maximum expected utility and for updating belief are reformulated as an elimination--type algorithm called bucket…
In this paper, we study the two choice balls and bins process when balls are not allowed to choose any two random bins, but only bins that are connected by an edge in an underlying graph. We show that for $n$ balls and $n$ bins, if the…
The voting process is formalized as a multistage voting model with successive alternative elimination. A finite number of agents vote for one of the alternatives each round subject to their preferences. If the number of votes given to the…
We prove that the probability that a sum of independent random variables in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with bounded densities lies in a ball is maximized by taking uniform distributions on balls. This in turn generalizes a result by Rogozin on the…
In responding to a question on Math Stackexchange, the author formulated the problem of determining the number of strings of balls colored in most $n$ colors with a number $k$ of repeated colors. In this paper, we formulate the problem more…
We study the Colored Bin Packing Problem: we are given a set of items where each item has a weight and color. We must pack the items in bins of uniform capacity such that no two items of the same color may be adjacent within in a bin. The…
Sequential sampling occurs when the entire population is not known in advance and data are obtained one at a time or in groups of units. This manuscript proposes a new algorithm to sequentially select a balanced sample. The algorithm…
We consider the classic infinite occupancy scheme, where balls are thrown in boxes independently, with probability $p_j$ of hitting box $j$. Each time a box receives its first ball we speak of a record and, more generally, call an…
The Bernoulli sieve is a version of the classical balls-in-boxes occupancy scheme, in which random frequencies of infinitely many boxes are produced by a multiplicative random walk, also known as the residual allocation model or…
In the standard formulation of the occupancy problem one considers the distribution of r balls in n cells, with each ball assigned independently to a given cell with probability 1/n. Although closed form expressions can be given for the…
In order to study how well a finite group might be generated by repeated random multiplications, P. Diaconis suggested the following urn model. An urn contains some balls labeled by elements which generate a group G. Two are drawn at random…
Bullets are fired, one per second, with independent speeds sampled uniformly from a discrete set. Collisions result in mutual annihilation. We show that the second fastest bullet survives with positive probability, while a slowest bullet…
Let $N_n=\{1,2,...,n\}$. Elements are drawn from the set $N_n$ with replacement, assuming that each element has probability $1/n$ of being drawn. We determine the limiting distributions for the waiting time until the given portion of pairs…
Backoff algorithms are used in many distributed systems where multiple devices contend for a shared resource. For the classic balls-into-bins problem, the number of singletons -- those bins with a single ball -- is important to the analysis…
Rejection sampling is a popular method used to generate numbers that follow some given distribution. We study the use of this method to generate random numbers in the unit interval from increasing probability density functions. We focus on…
In this paper, we study the problem of splitting fairly bundles of items. We show that given $n$ bundles with $m$ kinds of items in them, it is possible to distribute the value of each kind of item fairly among $r$ persons by breaking apart…
The problem of quickest detection of a change in distribution is considered under the assumption that the pre-change distribution is known, and the post-change distribution is only known to belong to a family of distributions…
This work facilitates ensuring fairness of machine learning in the real world by decoupling fairness considerations in compound decisions. In particular, this work studies how fairness propagates through a compound decision-making…
Consider two urns, $A$ and $B$, where initially $A$ contains a large number $n$ of balls and $B$ is empty. At each step, with equal probability, either we pick a ball at random in $A$ and place it in $B$, or vice-versa (provided of course…
We consider a version of the classical P\'olya urn scheme which incorporates innovations. The space $S$ of colors is an arbitrary measurable set. After each sampling of a ball in the urn, one returns $C$ balls of the same color and…