715 research outputs found
Prophet Inequalities with Limited Information
In the classical prophet inequality, a gambler observes a sequence of
stochastic rewards and must decide, for each reward ,
whether to keep it and stop the game or to forfeit the reward forever and
reveal the next value . The gambler's goal is to obtain a constant
fraction of the expected reward that the optimal offline algorithm would get.
Recently, prophet inequalities have been generalized to settings where the
gambler can choose items, and, more generally, where he can choose any
independent set in a matroid. However, all the existing algorithms require the
gambler to know the distribution from which the rewards are
drawn.
The assumption that the gambler knows the distribution from which
are drawn is very strong. Instead, we work with the much simpler
assumption that the gambler only knows a few samples from this distribution. We
construct the first single-sample prophet inequalities for many settings of
interest, whose guarantees all match the best possible asymptotically,
\emph{even with full knowledge of the distribution}. Specifically, we provide a
novel single-sample algorithm when the gambler can choose any elements
whose analysis is based on random walks with limited correlation. In addition,
we provide a black-box method for converting specific types of solutions to the
related \emph{secretary problem} to single-sample prophet inequalities, and
apply it to several existing algorithms. Finally, we provide a constant-sample
prophet inequality for constant-degree bipartite matchings.
We apply these results to design the first posted-price and multi-dimensional
auction mechanisms with limited information in settings with asymmetric
bidders
Online Independent Set Beyond the Worst-Case: Secretaries, Prophets, and Periods
We investigate online algorithms for maximum (weight) independent set on
graph classes with bounded inductive independence number like, e.g., interval
and disk graphs with applications to, e.g., task scheduling and spectrum
allocation. In the online setting, it is assumed that nodes of an unknown graph
arrive one by one over time. An online algorithm has to decide whether an
arriving node should be included into the independent set. Unfortunately, this
natural and practically relevant online problem cannot be studied in a
meaningful way within a classical competitive analysis as the competitive ratio
on worst-case input sequences is lower bounded by .
As a worst-case analysis is pointless, we study online independent set in a
stochastic analysis. Instead of focussing on a particular stochastic input
model, we present a generic sampling approach that enables us to devise online
algorithms achieving performance guarantees for a variety of input models. In
particular, our analysis covers stochastic input models like the secretary
model, in which an adversarial graph is presented in random order, and the
prophet-inequality model, in which a randomly generated graph is presented in
adversarial order. Our sampling approach bridges thus between stochastic input
models of quite different nature. In addition, we show that our approach can be
applied to a practically motivated admission control setting.
Our sampling approach yields an online algorithm for maximum independent set
with competitive ratio with respect to all of the mentioned
stochastic input models. for graph classes with inductive independence number
. The approach can be extended towards maximum-weight independent set by
losing only a factor of in the competitive ratio with denoting
the (expected) number of nodes
Buyback Problem - Approximate matroid intersection with cancellation costs
In the buyback problem, an algorithm observes a sequence of bids and must
decide whether to accept each bid at the moment it arrives, subject to some
constraints on the set of accepted bids. Decisions to reject bids are
irrevocable, whereas decisions to accept bids may be canceled at a cost that is
a fixed fraction of the bid value. Previous to our work, deterministic and
randomized algorithms were known when the constraint is a matroid constraint.
We extend this and give a deterministic algorithm for the case when the
constraint is an intersection of matroid constraints. We further prove a
matching lower bound on the competitive ratio for this problem and extend our
results to arbitrary downward closed set systems. This problem has applications
to banner advertisement, semi-streaming, routing, load balancing and other
problems where preemption or cancellation of previous allocations is allowed
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