Forward-backward Contention Resolution Schemes for Fair Rationing
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866916613093064704 |
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| author | Ma, Will MacRury, Calum Stein, Cliff |
| author_facet | Ma, Will MacRury, Calum Stein, Cliff |
| contents | We use contention resolution schemes (CRS) to derive algorithms for the fair rationing of a single resource when agents have stochastic demands. We aim to provide ex-ante guarantees on the level of service provided to each agent, who may measure service in different ways (Type-I, II, or III), calling for CRS under different feasibility constraints (rank-1 matroid or knapsack). We are particularly interested in two-order CRS where the agents are equally likely to arrive in a known forward order or its reverse, which is motivated by online rationing at food banks.
In particular, we derive a two-order CRS for rank-1 matroids with guarantee $1/(1+e^{-1/2})\approx 0.622$, which we prove is tight. This improves upon the $1/2$ guarantee that is best-possible under a single order (Alaei, SIAM J. Comput. 2014), while achieving separation with the $1-1/e\approx 0.632$ guarantee that is possible for random-order CRS (Lee and Singla, ESA 2018). Because CRS guarantees imply prophet inequalities, this also beats the two-order prophet inequality with ratio $(\sqrt{5}-1)/2\approx 0.618$ from (Arsenis, SODA 2021), which was tight for single-threshold policies. Rank-1 matroids suffice to provide guarantees under Type-II or III service, but Type-I service requires knapsack. Accordingly, we derive a two-order CRS for knapsack with guarantee $1/3$, improving upon the $1/(3+e^{-2})\approx 0.319$ guarantee that is best-possible under a single order (Jiang et al., SODA 2022). To our knowledge, $1/3$ provides the best-known guarantee for knapsack CRS even in the offline setting. Finally, we provide an upper bound of $1/(2+e^{-1})\approx 0.422$ for two-order knapsack CRS, strictly smaller than the upper bound of $(1-e^{-2})/2\approx0.432$ for random-order knapsack CRS. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_09521 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Forward-backward Contention Resolution Schemes for Fair Rationing Ma, Will MacRury, Calum Stein, Cliff Data Structures and Algorithms Discrete Mathematics F.2.2; G.2.2 We use contention resolution schemes (CRS) to derive algorithms for the fair rationing of a single resource when agents have stochastic demands. We aim to provide ex-ante guarantees on the level of service provided to each agent, who may measure service in different ways (Type-I, II, or III), calling for CRS under different feasibility constraints (rank-1 matroid or knapsack). We are particularly interested in two-order CRS where the agents are equally likely to arrive in a known forward order or its reverse, which is motivated by online rationing at food banks. In particular, we derive a two-order CRS for rank-1 matroids with guarantee $1/(1+e^{-1/2})\approx 0.622$, which we prove is tight. This improves upon the $1/2$ guarantee that is best-possible under a single order (Alaei, SIAM J. Comput. 2014), while achieving separation with the $1-1/e\approx 0.632$ guarantee that is possible for random-order CRS (Lee and Singla, ESA 2018). Because CRS guarantees imply prophet inequalities, this also beats the two-order prophet inequality with ratio $(\sqrt{5}-1)/2\approx 0.618$ from (Arsenis, SODA 2021), which was tight for single-threshold policies. Rank-1 matroids suffice to provide guarantees under Type-II or III service, but Type-I service requires knapsack. Accordingly, we derive a two-order CRS for knapsack with guarantee $1/3$, improving upon the $1/(3+e^{-2})\approx 0.319$ guarantee that is best-possible under a single order (Jiang et al., SODA 2022). To our knowledge, $1/3$ provides the best-known guarantee for knapsack CRS even in the offline setting. Finally, we provide an upper bound of $1/(2+e^{-1})\approx 0.422$ for two-order knapsack CRS, strictly smaller than the upper bound of $(1-e^{-2})/2\approx0.432$ for random-order knapsack CRS. |
| title | Forward-backward Contention Resolution Schemes for Fair Rationing |
| topic | Data Structures and Algorithms Discrete Mathematics F.2.2; G.2.2 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.09521 |