Related papers: Some variations of the secretary problem
A widely used technique for improving policies is success conditioning, in which one collects trajectories, identifies those that achieve a desired outcome, and updates the policy to imitate the actions taken along successful trajectories.…
This paper studies Makespan Minimization in the secretary model. Formally, jobs, specified by their processing times, are presented in a uniformly random order. An online algorithm has to assign each job permanently and irrevocably to one…
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…
In this paper, we construct and compare algorithmic approaches to solve the Preference Consistency Problem for preference statements based on hierarchical models. Instances of this problem contain a set of preference statements that are…
We solve a sequential decision-making problem under uncertainty that takes into account the failure probability of a task. This problem cannot be handled by the stochastic shortest path problem, which is the standard model for sequential…
Prophet inequalities consist of many beautiful statements that establish tight performance ratios between online and offline allocation algorithms. Typically, tightness is established by constructing an algorithmic guarantee and a…
This work investigates the optimal selection of the $m$th last success in a sequence of $n$ independent Bernoulli trials. We propose a threshold strategy that is $\varepsilon$-optimal under minimal assumptions about the monotonicity of the…
This paper answers a long-standing open question concerning the $1/e$-strategy for the problem of best choice. $N$ candidates for a job arrive at times independently uniformly distributed in $[0,1]$. The interviewer knows how each candidate…
The Possible-Winner problem asks, given an election where the voters' preferences over the set of candidates is partially specified, whether a distinguished candidate can become a winner. In this work, we consider the computational…
This paper considers data-driven chance-constrained stochastic optimization problems in a Bayesian framework. Bayesian posteriors afford a principled mechanism to incorporate data and prior knowledge into stochastic optimization problems.…
We study computational aspects of three prominent voting rules that use approval ballots to elect multiple winners. These rules are satisfaction approval voting, proportional approval voting, and reweighted approval voting. We first show…
The Windows Scheduling Problem, also known as the Pinwheel Problem, is to schedule periodic jobs subject to their processing frequency demands. Instances are given as a set of jobs that have to be processed infinitely often such that the…
Top-K queries are an established heuristic in information retrieval. This paper presents an approach for optimal tiered storage allocation under stream processing workloads using this heuristic: those requiring the analysis of only the…
Peer reviews, evaluations, and selections are a fundamental aspect of modern science. Funding bodies the world over employ experts to review and select the best proposals from those submitted for funding. The problem of peer selection,…
We study the problem of agent selection in causal strategic learning under multiple decision makers and address two key challenges that come with it. Firstly, while much of prior work focuses on studying a fixed pool of agents that remains…
The scenario-based optimization approach (`scenario approach') provides an intuitive way of approximating the solution to chance-constrained optimization programs, based on finding the optimal solution under a finite number of sampled…
Understanding the behaviour of heuristic search methods is a challenge. This even holds for simple local search methods such as 2-OPT for the Traveling Salesperson problem. In this paper, we present a general framework that is able to…
We consider ordinal online problems, i.e., tasks that only require pairwise comparisons between elements of the input. A classic example is the secretary problem and the game of googol, as well as its multiple combinatorial extensions such…
In the marriage problem, a variant of the bi-parted matching problem, each member has a `wish-list' expressing his/her preference for all possible partners; this list consists of random, positive real numbers drawn from a certain…
In the best choice problem with random arrivals, an unknown number $n$ of rankable items arrive at times sampled from the uniform distribution. As is well known, a real-time player can ensure stopping at the overall best item with…