The classical secretary problem involves sequentially interviewing a pool of n applicants with the aim of hiring exactly the best one in the pool—nothing less is good enough. The optimal decision strategy is easy to describe and the probability of success is 1/e. In this paper, we consider a minor variant of this classical problem. We wish to pick not the best but the second best (the best is g...

In the paper the generalisation of the well known"secretary problem"is considered. The aim of the paper is to give a generalised model in such a way that the chosen set of the possible best $k$ elements have to be independent of all rejected elements. This condition is formulated using the theory of greedoids and in their special cases -- matroids and antimatroids. Examples of some special case...

This paper analyzes the sources of economic growth of the world economy, seven regions, and fourteen major economies during three periods – 1989-1995, 1995-2000, and 20002006. We allocate the growth of world output, as measured in the World Bank’s International Comparison Program, between input growth and productivity. We find, surprisingly, that input growth greatly predominates! Moreover, exc...

The continuing effects of red deer on the rain forest of Fiordland's Secretary Island (80 km2) over the last six years are described in relation to their initial impact and control operations. On easily accessible sites the range of affected species is increasing as the most palatable become depleted while some previously unmodified sites are now threatened. Photographic records, quantitative s...

The Virtual Secretary project focuses on the construction of an environment for secure software agents. As a research vehicle, i.e., to enable full-scale experiments in realistic settings, some major secretarial tasks have been chosen. Our environment for secure software agents will include propagation mechanisms, mechanisms for authentication and control, and common user software. A key elemen...

Secretary General of GTAUF2012 and Professor & Vice Chairman of Andrology Center, Peking University First Hospital, Peking University; Beijing 100034, China; Managing Editor, Translational Andrology and Urology, Hong Kong Correspondence to: Zhong-Cheng Xin, MD. Secretary General of GTAUF2012 and Professor & Vice Chairman of Andrology Center, Peking University First Hospital, Peking University, ...