The Competition Complexity of Prophet Secretary

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Ezra, Tomer, Garbuz, Tamar
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Ezra, Tomer
Garbuz, Tamar
author_facet Ezra, Tomer
Garbuz, Tamar
contents We study the classic single-choice prophet secretary problem through a resource augmentation lens. Our goal is to bound the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity for different classes of online algorithms. This metric asks for the smallest $k$ such that the expected value of the online algorithm on $k$ copies of the original instance, is at least a $(1 - ε)$-approximation to the expected offline optimum on the original instance (without added copies). We consider four natural classes of online algorithms: single-threshold, time-based threshold, activation-based, and general algorithms. We show that for single-threshold algorithms the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity is $Θ(\ln(\frac{1}ε))$ (as in the i.i.d. case). Additionally, we demonstrate that time-based threshold and activation-based algorithms (which cover all previous approaches for obtaining competitive-ratios for the classic prophet secretary problem) yield a sub-optimal $(1-ε)$-competition complexity of $Θ\left(\frac{\ln(\frac{1}ε)}{\ln\ln(\frac{1}ε)}\right)$, which is strictly better than the class of single-threshold algorithms. Finally, we find that the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity of general adaptive algorithms is $Θ(\sqrt{\ln(\frac{1}ε)})$, which is in sharp contrast to $Θ(\ln\ln(\frac{1}ε))$ in the i.i.d. case.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_10892
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Competition Complexity of Prophet Secretary
Ezra, Tomer
Garbuz, Tamar
Computer Science and Game Theory
We study the classic single-choice prophet secretary problem through a resource augmentation lens. Our goal is to bound the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity for different classes of online algorithms. This metric asks for the smallest $k$ such that the expected value of the online algorithm on $k$ copies of the original instance, is at least a $(1 - ε)$-approximation to the expected offline optimum on the original instance (without added copies). We consider four natural classes of online algorithms: single-threshold, time-based threshold, activation-based, and general algorithms. We show that for single-threshold algorithms the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity is $Θ(\ln(\frac{1}ε))$ (as in the i.i.d. case). Additionally, we demonstrate that time-based threshold and activation-based algorithms (which cover all previous approaches for obtaining competitive-ratios for the classic prophet secretary problem) yield a sub-optimal $(1-ε)$-competition complexity of $Θ\left(\frac{\ln(\frac{1}ε)}{\ln\ln(\frac{1}ε)}\right)$, which is strictly better than the class of single-threshold algorithms. Finally, we find that the $(1-ε)$-competition complexity of general adaptive algorithms is $Θ(\sqrt{\ln(\frac{1}ε)})$, which is in sharp contrast to $Θ(\ln\ln(\frac{1}ε))$ in the i.i.d. case.
title The Competition Complexity of Prophet Secretary
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10892