Let ([Pi]t) be a counting process on + with the property that for any t, T with 0[less-than-or-equals, slant]t[less-than-or-equals, slant]T the distribution of [Pi]T given the past t is Pascal (negative binomial) with one parameter being [Pi]t+1 and the probability parameter depending only on t...

We consider optimal selection problems, where the number N1 of candidates for the job is random, and the times of arrival of the candidates are uniformly distributed in [0, 1]. Such best choice problems are generally harder than the fixed-N counterparts, because there is a learning process going...