Abstract
How much can an imperfect source of randomness affect an algorithm? We examine several simple questions of this type concerning the long-term behavior of a random walk on a finite graph. In our setup, at each step of the random walk a "controller" can, with a certain small probability, fix the next step, thus introducing a bias. We analyze the extent to which the bias can affect the limit behavior of the walk. The controller is assumed to associate a real, nonnegative, "benefit" with each state, and to strive to maximize the long-term expected benefit. We derive tight bounds on the maximum of this objective function over all controller's strategies, and present polynomial time algorithms for computing the optimal controller strategy.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 1992 |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Pages | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 0897915119 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jul 1992 |
| Event | 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 1992 - Victoria, Canada Duration: 4 May 1992 → 6 May 1992 |
Publication series
| Name | Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing |
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| Volume | Part F129722 |
| ISSN (Print) | 0737-8017 |
Conference
| Conference | 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 1992 |
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| Country/Territory | Canada |
| City | Victoria |
| Period | 4/05/92 → 6/05/92 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 1992 ACM.