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Related papers: Prophet Inequality with Conservative Prediction

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We consider the online stochastic matching problem for bipartite graphs where edges adjacent to an online node must be probed to determine if they exist, based on known edge probabilities. Our algorithms respect commitment, in that if a…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2021-08-02 Allan Borodin , Calum MacRury , Akash Rakheja

We study the classic single-choice prophet secretary problem through a resource augmentation lens. Our goal is to bound the $(1-\epsilon)$-competition complexity for different classes of online algorithms. This metric asks for the smallest…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Tomer Ezra , Tamar Garbuz

We investigate non-adaptive algorithms for matroid prophet inequalities. Matroid prophet inequalities have been considered resolved since 2012 when [KW12] introduced thresholds that guarantee a tight 2-approximation to the prophet; however,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-19 Shuchi Chawla , Kira Goldner , Anna R. Karlin , J. Benjamin Miller

We study the i.i.d. $k$-selection prophet inequality problem, where a decision-maker sequentially observes $n$ independent nonnegative rewards and may accept at most $k$ of them without knowledge of future realizations. The objective is to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-24 Jieming Kong , Karthyek Murthy

We introduce a new decomposition technique for random variables that maps a generic instance of the prophet inequalities problem to a new instance where all but a constant number of variables have a tractable structure that we refer to as…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-10 Allen Liu , Renato Paes Leme , Martin Pal , Jon Schneider , Balasubramanian Sivan

In the online 2-bounded auction problem, we have a collection of items represented as nodes in a graph and bundles of size two represented by edges. Agents are presented sequentially, each with a random weight function over the bundles. The…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-17 José Soto , Victor Verdugo

We study the prophet inequality when the gambler has an access only to a single sample from each distribution. Rubinstein, Wang and Weinberg showed that an optimal guarantee of 1/2 can be achieved when the underlying matroid has rank 1,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-07-03 Kanstantsin Pashkovich , Alice Sayutina

We investigate prophet inequalities with competitive ratios approaching $1$, seeking to generalize $k$-uniform matroids. We first show that large girth does not suffice: for all $k$, there exists a matroid of girth $\geq k$ and a prophet…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-11-21 Noga Alon , Nick Gravin , Tristan Pollner , Aviad Rubinstein , Hongao Wang , S. Matthew Weinberg , Qianfan Zhang

Due to their numerous applications, in particular in Mechanism Design, Prophet Inequalities have experienced a surge of interest. They describe competitive ratios for basic stopping time problems where random variables get revealed…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Moran Feldman , Ola Svensson , Rico Zenklusen

In the adaptive ProbeMax problem, given a collection of mutually-independent random variables $X_1, \ldots, X_n$, our goal is to design an adaptive probing policy for sequentially sampling at most $k$ of these variables, with the objective…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-10-17 Guillermo Gallego , Danny Segev

The prophet and secretary problems demonstrate online scenarios involving the optimal stopping theory. In a typical prophet or secretary problem, selection decisions are assumed to be immediate and irrevocable. However, many online settings…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-11-07 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ilan Nehama

There is a rising interest for studying the online benchmark as an alternative of the classical offline benchmark in online stochastic settings. Ezra, Feldman, Gravin, and Tang (SODA 2023) introduced the notion of order-competitive ratio,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-06-24 Liyan Chen , Nuozhou Sun , Zhihao Gavin Tang

Despite having the same basic prophet inequality setup and model of loss aversion, conclusions in our multi-dimensional model differs considerably from the one-dimensional model of Kleinberg et al. For example, Kleinberg et al. gives a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-09-28 Linda Cai , Joshua Gardner , S. Matthew Weinberg

Prophet inequalities are a useful tool for designing online allocation procedures and comparing their performance to the optimal offline allocation. In the basic setting of $k$-unit prophet inequalities, the well-known procedure of Alaei…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Jiashuo Jiang , Will Ma , Jiawei Zhang

We study the online fair division problem, where indivisible goods arrive sequentially and must be allocated immediately and irrevocably. Prior work establishes strong impossibility results for approximating classic notions such as…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-29 Davin Choo , Winston Fu , Derek Khu , Tzeh Yuan Neoh , Tze-Yang Poon , Nicholas Teh

We study matroid prophet inequalities when distributions are unknown and accessible only through samples. While single-sample prophet inequalities for special matroids are known, no constant-factor competitive algorithm with even a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-06-19 Hu Fu , Pinyan Lu , Zhihao Gavin Tang , Hongxun Wu , Jinzhao Wu , Qianfan Zhang

In this paper, we survey literature on prophet inequalities for subadditive combinatorial auctions. We give an overview of the previous best $O(\log \log m)$ prophet inequality as well as the preceding $O(\log m)$ prophet inequality. Then,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Dwaipayan Saha , Ananya Parashar

The secretary and the prophet inequality problems are central to the field of Stopping Theory. Recently, there has been a lot of work in generalizing these models to multiple items because of their applications in mechanism design. The most…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-03-20 Soheil Ehsani , MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Thomas Kesselheim , Sahil Singla

We introduce a novel framework of Prophet Inequalities for combinatorial valuation functions. For a (non-monotone) submodular objective function over an arbitrary matroid feasibility constraint, we give an $O(1)$-competitive algorithm. For…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2016-11-03 Aviad Rubinstein , Sahil Singla

We consider prophet inequalities in a setting where agents correspond to both elements in a matroid and vertices in a graph. A set of agents is feasible if they form both an independent set in the matroid and an independent set in the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-07-17 Jackie Baek , Will Ma