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Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.8

Identifying Approximate Minimizers Under Stochastic Uncertainity

Authors: Hessa Al-Thani and Viswanath Nagarajan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract

We study a fundamental stochastic selection problem involving n independent random variables, each of which can be queried at some cost. Given a tolerance level δ, the goal is to find a δ-approximately minimum (or maximum) value over all the random variables, at minimum expected cost. A solution to this problem is an adaptive sequence of queries, where the choice of the next query may depend on previously-observed values. Two variants arise, depending on whether the goal is to find a δ-minimum value or a δ-minimizer. When all query costs are uniform, we provide a 4-approximation algorithm for both variants. When query costs are non-uniform, we provide a 5.83-approximation algorithm for the δ-minimum value and a 7.47-approximation for the δ-minimizer. All our algorithms rely on non-adaptive policies (that perform a fixed sequence of queries), so we also upper bound the corresponding "adaptivity" gaps. Our analysis relates the stopping probabilities in the algorithm and optimal policies, where a key step is in proving and using certain stochastic dominance properties.

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Hessa Al-Thani and Viswanath Nagarajan. Identifying Approximate Minimizers Under Stochastic Uncertainity. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 8:1-8:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{althani_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.8,
  author =	{Al-Thani, Hessa and Nagarajan, Viswanath},
  title =	{{Identifying Approximate Minimizers Under Stochastic Uncertainity}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-233854},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation algorithms, stochastic optimization, selection problem}
}

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Identifying Approximate Minimizers Under Stochastic Uncertainity

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