Abstract
The elements of a finite nonempty partially ordered set are exposed at independent uniform times in $[0,1]$ to a selector who, at any given time, can see the structure of the induced partial order on the exposed elements. The selector's task is to choose online a maximal element. This generalizes the classical linear order secretary problem, for which it is known that the selector can succeed with probability $1/e$ and that this is best possible. We describe a strategy for the general problem that achieves success probability at least $1/e$ for an arbitrary partial order.
Citation
Ragnar Freij. Johan Wästlund. "Partially ordered secretaries." Electron. Commun. Probab. 15 504 - 507, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1214/ECP.v15-1579
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