Related papers: Difference prophet inequalities for [0,1]-valued i…

We give sharp bounds for the reliability measure of a discrete r.v. defined on {0, ..., n}, conditionally on the knowledge of the first three moments of the r.v. The present work is as an extension of the results given in [Di Cecco, Stat.…

In this thesis, which is supervised by Dr. David Penman, we examine random interval graphs. Recall that such a graph is defined by letting $X_{1},\ldots X_{n},Y_{1},\ldots Y_{n}$ be $2n$ independent random variables, with uniform…

Let X_1,...., X_n be a collection of iid discrete random variables, and Y_1,..., Y_m a set of noisy observations of such variables. Assume each observation Y_a to be a random function of some a random subset of the X_i's, and consider the…

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…

We consider descending price auctions for selling $m$ units of a good to unit demand i.i.d. buyers where there is an exogenous bound of $k$ on the number of price levels the auction clock can take. The auctioneer's problem is to choose…

There is a growing body of work on sorting and selection in models other than the unit-cost comparison model. This work is the first treatment of a natural stochastic variant of the problem where the cost of comparing two elements is a…

The classical Prophet Inequality arises from a fundamental problem in optimal-stopping theory. In this problem, a gambler sees a finite sequence of independent, non-negative random variables. If he stops the sequence at any time, he…

We study the problem of testing \emph{conditional independence} for discrete distributions. Specifically, given samples from a discrete random variable $(X, Y, Z)$ on domain $[\ell_1]\times[\ell_2] \times [n]$, we want to distinguish, with…

A well-known discovery of Feige's is the following: Let $X_1, \ldots, X_n$ be nonnegative independent random variables, with $\mathbb{E}[X_i] \leq 1 \;\forall i$, and let $X = \sum_{i=1}^n X_i$. Then for any $n$, \[\Pr[X < \mathbb{E}[X] +…

We study a new family of random variables, that each arise as the distribution of the maximum or minimum of a random number $N$ of i.i.d.~random variables $X_1,X_2,\ldots,X_N$, each distributed as a variable $X$ with support on $[0,1]$. The…

Prophet inequalities compare online stopping strategies against an omniscient "prophet" using distributional knowledge. In this work, we augment this model with a conservative prediction of the maximum realized value. We quantify the…

We study a variant of the single-choice prophet inequality problem where the decision-maker does not know the underlying distribution and has only access to a set of samples from the distributions. Rubinstein et al. [2020] showed that the…

Prophet inequalities are a central object of study in optimal stopping theory. In the iid model, a gambler sees values in an online fashion, sampled independently from a given distribution. Upon observing each value, the gambler either…

A pair of probability distributions over $\{0,1\}^n$ is said to be $(k,\delta)$-wise indistinguishable if all of the size $k$ marginals are within statistical distance at most $\delta$. Previous works introduced this concept and study when…

Let $(X_k)_{k\geq 1}$ and $(Y_k)_{k\geq 1}$ be two independent sequences of i.i.d. random variables, with values in a finite and totally ordered alphabet $\mathcal{A}_m:=\{1,\dots,m\}$, and having respective probability mass function…

We consider the prophet inequality problem for (not necessarily bipartite) matching problems with independent edge values, under both edge arrivals and vertex arrivals. We show constant-factor prophet inequalities for the case where the…

In a classical online decision problem, a decision-maker who is trying to maximize her value inspects a sequence of arriving items to learn their values (drawn from known distributions), and decides when to stop the process by taking the…

In the classical optimal stopping problem, a player is given a sequence of random variables $X_1\ldots X_n$ with known distributions. After observing the realization of $X_i$, the player can either accept the observed reward from $X_i$ and…

For each $n\ge 1$, let $X_{n,1},\ldots,X_{n,N_n}$ be real random variables and $S_n=\sum_{i=1}^{N_n}X_{n,i}$. Let $m_n\ge 1$ be an integer. Suppose $(X_{n,1},\ldots,X_{n,N_n})$ is $m_n$-dependent, $E(X_{ni})=0$, $E(X_{ni}^2)<\infty$ and…

Let S_n=X_1+...+X_n be a sum of independent symmetric random variables such that |X_{i}|\leq 1. Denote by W_n=\epsilon_{1}+...+\epsilon_{n} a sum of independent random variables such that \prob{\eps_i = \pm 1} = 1/2. We prove that…