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Related papers: Optimal stopping in a two-sided secretary problem

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The well-known secretary problem in sequential analysis and optimal stopping theory asks one to maximize the probability of finding the optimal candidate in a sequentially examined list under the constraint that accept/reject decisions are…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-13 Xujun Liu , Olgica Milenkovic

For $2\le k\in\mathbb{N}$, consider the following adaptation of the classical secretary problem. There are $k$ items at each of $n$ linearly ordered ranks. The $kn$ items are revealed, one item at a time, in a uniformly random order, to an…

Probability · Mathematics 2022-08-24 Ross G. Pinsky

In the online random-arrival model, an algorithm receives a sequence of n requests that arrive in a random order. The algorithm is expected to make an irrevocable decision with regard to each request based only on the observed history. We…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2014-07-08 Shai Vardi

The game of best choice, also known as the secretary problem, is a model for sequential decision making with many variations in the literature. Notably, the classical setup assumes that the sequence of candidate rankings is uniformly…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-03-13 Madeline Crews , Brant Jones , Kaitlyn Myers , Laura Taalman , Michael Urbanski , Breeann Wilson

We present a new variant of the secretary problem. Let $A$ be a totally ordered set of $n$ \emph{applicants}. Given $P\subseteq A$ and $x\in A$, let $rr(P,x)=\vert\{z\in P \mid z\leq x\}\vert\mbox{ }$ be the \emph{relative rank of} $x$…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-07-10 Josef Rukavicka

There are two major models of value uncertainty in the optimal stopping literature: the secretary model, which assumes no prior knowledge, and the prophet inequality model, which assumes full information about value distributions. In…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Tian Bai , Zhiyi Huang , Chui Shan Lee , Dongchen Li

In the classical secretary problem, $n$ ranked items arrive one by one, and each item's rank relative to its predecessors is noted. The observer must select or reject each item as it arrives, with the object of selecting the item of highest…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-07-21 Ross G. Pinsky , Tomer Zilca

The game of best choice (or "secretary problem") is a model for making an irrevocable decision among a fixed number of candidate choices that are presented sequentially in random order, one at a time. Because the classically optimal…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-14 Brant Jones , Katelynn D. Kochalski , Sarah Loeb , Julia C. Walk

Suppose that $n$ items arrive online in random order and the goal is to select $k$ of them such that the expected sum of the selected items is maximized. The decision for any item is irrevocable and must be made on arrival without knowing…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-12-02 Susanne Albers , Leon Ladewig

As a famous result, the ``37\% Law'' for Secretary Problem has widely influenced peoples' perception on online decision strategies about choice. However, using this strategy, too many attractive candidates may be rejected in the first 37\%,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-07-15 Zishuo Zhao

We consider two variations of the classical secretary problem. * A variation of the returning secretary problem where each interviewee may appear a second time with a fixed probability p. The decision-maker observes interviewees…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-04-13 Sarthak Agrawal , Sanjeev Saxena

We study variants of the secretary problem, where $N$, the number of candidates, is a random variable, and the decision maker wants to maximize the probability of success -- picking the largest number among the $N$ candidates -- using only…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-10-13 Junhui Zhang , Patrick Jaillet

In the classical secretary problem, one attempts to find the maximum of an unknown and unlearnable distribution through sequential search. In many real-world searches, however, distributions are not entirely unknown and can be learned…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-08-30 Daniel G. Goldstein , R. Preston McAfee , Siddharth Suri , James R. Wright

We study a learning-augmented variant of the secretary problem, recently introduced by Fujii and Yoshida (2023), in which the decision-maker has access to machine-learned predictions of candidate values. The central challenge is to balance…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Helia Karisani , Mohammadreza Daneshvaramoli , Hedyeh Beyhaghi , Mohammad Hajiesmaili , Cameron Musco

This paper introduces a heuristic framework for the Best Secretary Problem, where one item must be selected using rank information only. We develop five data-responsive rules extending classical fixed-cutoff methods: an expected-record…

Applications · Statistics 2025-11-14 Eugene Seong

We study secretary problems in settings with multiple agents. In the standard secretary problem, a sequence of arbitrary awards arrive online, in a random order, and a single decision maker makes an immediate and irrevocable decision…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-07-15 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ron Kupfer

Optimal stopping problems give rise to random distributions describing how many applicants the decision-maker will sample or interview before choosing one, a quantity sometimes referred to as the search time or process duration. This…

Applications · Statistics 2019-12-13 Simon Demers

We study the submodular secretary problem with a cardinality constraint. In this problem, $n$ candidates for secretaries appear sequentially in random order. At the arrival of each candidate, a decision maker must irrevocably decide whether…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-05-14 Kaito Fujii

We study online secretary problems with returns in combinatorial packing domains with $n$ candidates that arrive sequentially over time in random order. The goal is to accept a feasible packing of candidates of maximum total value. In the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-02-06 Martin Hoefer , Lisa Wilhelmi

In this paper, we investigate two variants of the secretary problem. In these variants, we are presented with a sequence of numbers $X_i$ that come from distributions $\mathcal{D}_i$, and that arrive in either random or adversarial order.…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-08-22 Pranav Nuti , Jan Vondrák