TY - GEN
T1 - On online labeling with polynomially many labels
AU - Babka, Martin
AU - Bulánek, Jan
AU - Čunát, Vladimír
AU - Koucký, Michal
AU - Saks, Michael
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In the online labeling problem with parameters n and m we are presented with a sequence of n keys from a totally ordered universe U and must assign each arriving key a label from the label set {1,2,...,m} so that the order of labels (strictly) respects the ordering on U. As new keys arrive it may be necessary to change the labels of some items; such changes may be done at any time at unit cost for each change. The goal is to minimize the total cost. An alternative formulation of this problem is the file maintenance problem, in which the items, instead of being labeled, are maintained in sorted order in an array of length m, and we pay unit cost for moving an item. For the case m=cn for constant c > 1, there are known algorithms that use at most O(n log(n) 2) relabelings in total [9], and it was shown recently that this is asymptotically optimal [1]. For the case of m = θ(n C) for C > 1, algorithms are known that use O(n logn) relabelings. A matching lower bound was claimed in [7]. That proof involved two distinct steps: a lower bound for a problem they call prefix bucketing and a reduction from prefix bucketing to online labeling. The reduction seems to be incorrect, leaving a (seemingly significant) gap in the proof. In this paper we close the gap by presenting a correct reduction to prefix bucketing. Furthermore we give a simplified and improved analysis of the prefix bucketing lower bound. This improvement allows us to extend the lower bounds for online labeling to the case where the number m of labels is superpolynomial in n. In particular, for superpolynomial m we get an asymptotically optimal lower bound Ω((n log n) / (log log m - log log n)).
AB - In the online labeling problem with parameters n and m we are presented with a sequence of n keys from a totally ordered universe U and must assign each arriving key a label from the label set {1,2,...,m} so that the order of labels (strictly) respects the ordering on U. As new keys arrive it may be necessary to change the labels of some items; such changes may be done at any time at unit cost for each change. The goal is to minimize the total cost. An alternative formulation of this problem is the file maintenance problem, in which the items, instead of being labeled, are maintained in sorted order in an array of length m, and we pay unit cost for moving an item. For the case m=cn for constant c > 1, there are known algorithms that use at most O(n log(n) 2) relabelings in total [9], and it was shown recently that this is asymptotically optimal [1]. For the case of m = θ(n C) for C > 1, algorithms are known that use O(n logn) relabelings. A matching lower bound was claimed in [7]. That proof involved two distinct steps: a lower bound for a problem they call prefix bucketing and a reduction from prefix bucketing to online labeling. The reduction seems to be incorrect, leaving a (seemingly significant) gap in the proof. In this paper we close the gap by presenting a correct reduction to prefix bucketing. Furthermore we give a simplified and improved analysis of the prefix bucketing lower bound. This improvement allows us to extend the lower bounds for online labeling to the case where the number m of labels is superpolynomial in n. In particular, for superpolynomial m we get an asymptotically optimal lower bound Ω((n log n) / (log log m - log log n)).
KW - file maintenance problem
KW - lower bounds
KW - online labeling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866650850&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84866650850&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-33090-2_12
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-33090-2_12
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84866650850
SN - 9783642330896
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 121
EP - 132
BT - Algorithms, ESA 2012 - 20th Annual European Symposium, Proceedings
T2 - 20th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2012
Y2 - 10 September 2012 through 12 September 2012
ER -