Related papers: On-Line Difference Maximization
Though competitive analysis is often a very good tool for the analysis of online algorithms, sometimes it does not give any insight and sometimes it gives counter-intuitive results. Much work has gone into exploring other performance…
Which ads should we display in sponsored search in order to maximize our revenue? How should we dynamically rank information sources to maximize value of information? These applications exhibit strong diminishing returns: Selection of…
Submodular function maximization has been studied extensively in recent years under various constraints and models. The problem plays a major role in various disciplines. We study a natural online variant of this problem in which elements…
We consider the optimal online packet scheduling problem in a single-user energy harvesting wireless communication system, where energy is harvested from natural renewable sources, making future energy arrivals instants and amounts random…
This paper considers online optimization for a system that performs a sequence of back-to-back tasks. Each task can be processed in one of multiple processing modes that affect the duration of the task, the reward earned, and an additional…
We consider a general online stochastic optimization problem with multiple budget constraints over a horizon of finite time periods. In each time period, a reward function and multiple cost functions are revealed, and the decision maker…
We study a competitive online optimization problem with multiple inventories. In the problem, an online decision maker seeks to optimize the allocation of multiple capacity-limited inventories over a slotted horizon, while the allocation…
We study the budget allocation problem in online marketing campaigns that utilize previously collected offline data. We first discuss the long-term effect of optimizing marketing budget allocation decisions in the offline setting. To…
In this paper, we study twelve stochastic input models for online problems and reveal the relationships among the competitive ratios for the models. The competitive ratio is defined as the worst ratio between the expected optimal value and…
Optimal stopping is the problem of deciding when to stop a stochastic system to obtain the greatest reward, arising in numerous application areas such as finance, healthcare and marketing. State-of-the-art methods for high-dimensional…
We study the classic divide-and-choose method for equitably allocating divisible goods between two players who are rational, self-interested Bayesian agents. The players have additive values for the goods. The prior distributions on those…
This paper considers the recently popular beyond-worst-case algorithm analysis model which integrates machine-learned predictions with online algorithm design. We consider the online Steiner tree problem in this model for both directed and…
The effectiveness of advertising in e-commerce largely depends on the ability of merchants to bid on and win impressions for their targeted users. The bidding procedure is highly complex due to various factors such as market competition,…
In this paper, we discuss a stochastic decision problem of optimally selecting the order in which to try $n$ opportunities that may yield an uncertain reward in the future. The motivation came out from pure curiosity, after an informal…
Fighting Fantasy is a popular recreational fantasy gaming system worldwide. Combat in this system progresses through a stochastic game involving a series of rounds, each of which may be won or lost. Each round, a limited resource (`luck')…
We present a Monte-Carlo simulation algorithm for real-time policy improvement of an adaptive controller. In the Monte-Carlo simulation, the long-term expected reward of each possible action is statistically measured, using the initial…
We study the minimum-cost metric perfect matching problem under online i.i.d arrivals. We are given a fixed metric with a server at each of the points, and then requests arrive online, each drawn independently from a known probability…
This paper introduces capital flow to the single item stochastic lot sizing problem. A retailer can leverage business overdraft to deal with unexpected capital shortage, but needs to pay interest if its available balance goes below zero. A…
This paper presents a new exponential lower bound for the two most popular deterministic variants of the strategy improvement algorithms for solving parity, mean payoff, discounted payoff and simple stochastic games. The first variant…
In this work we consider data-driven optimization problems where one must maximize a function given only queries at a fixed set of points. This problem setting emerges in many domains where function evaluation is a complex and expensive…