94,803 research outputs found
General time consistent discounting
Modeling inter-temporal choice is a key problem in both computer science and economic theory. The discounted utility model of Samuelson is currently the most popular model for measuring the global utility of a time-series of local utilities. The model is limited by not allowing the discount function to change with the age of the agent. This is despite the fact that many agents, in particular humans, are best modelled with age-dependent discount functions. It is well known that discounting can lead to time-inconsistent behaviour where agents change their preferences over time. In this paper we generalise the discounted utility model to allow age-dependent discount functions. We then extend previous work in time-inconsistency to our new setting, including a complete characterisation of time-(in)consistent discount functions, the existence of sub-game perfect equilibrium policies where the discount function is time-inconsistent and a continuity result showing that “nearly” time-consistent discount rates lead to “nearly” time-consistent behaviour
An Algorithmic Proof of the Lovasz Local Lemma via Resampling Oracles
The Lovasz Local Lemma is a seminal result in probabilistic combinatorics. It
gives a sufficient condition on a probability space and a collection of events
for the existence of an outcome that simultaneously avoids all of those events.
Finding such an outcome by an efficient algorithm has been an active research
topic for decades. Breakthrough work of Moser and Tardos (2009) presented an
efficient algorithm for a general setting primarily characterized by a product
structure on the probability space.
In this work we present an efficient algorithm for a much more general
setting. Our main assumption is that there exist certain functions, called
resampling oracles, that can be invoked to address the undesired occurrence of
the events. We show that, in all scenarios to which the original Lovasz Local
Lemma applies, there exist resampling oracles, although they are not
necessarily efficient. Nevertheless, for essentially all known applications of
the Lovasz Local Lemma and its generalizations, we have designed efficient
resampling oracles. As applications of these techniques, we present new results
for packings of Latin transversals, rainbow matchings and rainbow spanning
trees.Comment: 47 page
Large matchings in uniform hypergraphs and the conjectures of Erdos and Samuels
In this paper we study conditions which guarantee the existence of perfect
matchings and perfect fractional matchings in uniform hypergraphs. We reduce
this problem to an old conjecture by Erd\H{o}s on estimating the maximum number
of edges in a hypergraph when the (fractional) matching number is given, which
we are able to solve in some special cases using probabilistic techniques.
Based on these results, we obtain some general theorems on the minimum
-degree ensuring the existence of perfect (fractional) matchings. In
particular, we asymptotically determine the minimum vertex degree which
guarantees a perfect matching in 4-uniform and 5-uniform hypergraphs. We also
discuss an application to a problem of finding an optimal data allocation in a
distributed storage system
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