1,721,055 research outputs found
Approximating Pandora’s Box with Correlations
Full text linkWe revisit the classic Pandora’s Box (PB) problem under correlated distributions on the box values. Recent work of [Shuchi Chawla et al., 2020] obtained constant approximate algorithms for a restricted class of policies for the problem that visit boxes in a fixed order. In this work, we study the complexity of approximating the optimal policy which may adaptively choose which box to visit next based on the values seen so far.
Our main result establishes an approximation-preserving equivalence of PB to the well studied Uniform Decision Tree (UDT) problem from stochastic optimization and a variant of the Min-Sum Set Cover (MSSC_f) problem. For distributions of support m, UDT admits a log m approximation, and while a constant factor approximation in polynomial time is a long-standing open problem, constant factor approximations are achievable in subexponential time [Ray Li et al., 2020]. Our main result implies that the same properties hold for PB and MSSC_f.
We also study the case where the distribution over values is given more succinctly as a mixture of m product distributions. This problem is again related to a noisy variant of the Optimal Decision Tree which is significantly more challenging. We give a constant-factor approximation that runs in time n^Õ(m²/ε²) when the mixture components on every box are either identical or separated in TV distance by ε
Network Design with Coverage Costs
Full text linkWe study network design with a cost structure motivated by redundancy in data traffic. We are given a graph, g groups of terminals, and a universe of data packets. Each group of terminals desires a subset of the packets from its respective source. The cost of routing traffic on any edge in the network is proportional to the total size of the distinct packets that the edge carries. Our goal is to find a minimum cost routing. We focus on two settings. In the first, the collection of packet sets desired by source-sink pairs is laminar. For this setting, we present a primal-dual based 2-approximation, improving upon a logarithmic approximation due to Barman and Chawla (2012){BC12}. In the second setting, packet sets can have non-trivial intersection. We focus on the case where each packet is desired by either a single terminal group or by all of the groups. This setting does not admit an O(log^{{1}/{4} - gamma} g)-approximation for any constant gamma under a standard assumption; we present an O(log g)-approximation when the graph is unweighted.
Our approximation for the second setting is based on a novel spanner-type construction in unweighted graphs that, given a collection of g vertex subsets, finds a subgraph of cost only a constant factor more than the minimum spanning tree of the graph, such that every subset in the collection has a Steiner tree in the subgraph of cost at most O(log g) that of its minimum Steiner tree in the original graph. We call such a subgraph a group spanner
Online Time-Windows TSP with Predictions
Full text linkIn the Time-Windows TSP (TW-TSP) we are given requests at different locations on a network; each request is endowed with a reward and an interval of time; the goal is to find a tour that visits as much reward as possible during the corresponding time window. For the online version of this problem, where each request is revealed at the start of its time window, no finite competitive ratio can be obtained. We consider a version of the problem where the algorithm is presented with predictions of where and when the online requests will appear, without any knowledge of the quality of this side information.
Vehicle routing problems such as the TW-TSP can be very sensitive to errors or changes in the input due to the hard time-window constraints, and it is unclear whether imperfect predictions can be used to obtain a finite competitive ratio. We show that good performance can be achieved by explicitly building slack into the solution. Our main result is an online algorithm that achieves a competitive ratio logarithmic in the diameter of the underlying network, matching the performance of the best offline algorithm to within factors that depend on the quality of the provided predictions. The competitive ratio degrades smoothly as a function of the quality and we show that this dependence is tight within constant factors
Individual Fairness in Advertising Auctions Through Inverse Proportionality
Full text linkRecent empirical work demonstrates that online advertisement can exhibit bias in the delivery of ads across users even when all advertisers bid in a non-discriminatory manner. We study the design ad auctions that, given fair bids, are guaranteed to produce fair outcomes. Following the works of Dwork and Ilvento [2019] and Chawla et al. [2020], our goal is to design a truthful auction that satisfies "individual fairness" in its outcomes: informally speaking, users that are similar to each other should obtain similar allocations of ads. Within this framework we quantify the tradeoff between social welfare maximization and fairness.
This work makes two conceptual contributions. First, we express the fairness constraint as a kind of stability condition: any two users that are assigned multiplicatively similar values by all the advertisers must receive additively similar allocations for each advertiser. This value stability constraint is expressed as a function that maps the multiplicative distance between value vectors to the maximum allowable _{∞} distance between the corresponding allocations. Standard auctions do not satisfy this kind of value stability.
Second, we introduce a new class of allocation algorithms called Inverse Proportional Allocation that achieve a near optimal tradeoff between fairness and social welfare for a broad and expressive class of value stability conditions. These allocation algorithms are truthful and prior-free, and achieve a constant factor approximation to the optimal (unconstrained) social welfare. In particular, the approximation ratio is independent of the number of advertisers in the system. In this respect, these allocation algorithms greatly surpass the guarantees achieved in previous work. We also extend our results to broader notions of fairness that we call subset fairness
Minmax Payoffs of a Location Game Shuchi Chawla 1
No full textAbstract We consider a two-player, sequential location game, with n stages. At each stage, players 1 and 2 choose locations from a feasible set in sequence. After all moves are made, consumers each purchase one unit of the good from the closest location. Since player 1 has a natural first-mover disadvantage here (player 2 can obtain a payoff of
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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