Element Distinctness, Frequency Moments, and Sliding Windows

We derive new time-space tradeoff lower bounds and algorithms for exactly computing statistics of input data, including frequency moments, element distinctness, and order statistics, that are simple to calculate for sorted data. We develop a randomized algorithm for the element distinctness problem whose time T and space S satisfy T in O (n^{3/2}/S^{1/2}), smaller than previous lower bounds for comparison-based algorithms, showing that element distinctness is strictly easier than sorting for randomized branching programs. This algorithm is based on a new time and space efficient algorithm for finding all collisions of a function f from a finite set to itself that are reachable by iterating f from a given set of starting points. We further show that our element distinctness algorithm can be extended at only a polylogarithmic factor cost to solve the element distinctness problem over sliding windows, where the task is to take an input of length 2n-1 and produce an output for each window of length n, giving n outputs in total. In contrast, we show a time-space tradeoff lower bound of T in Omega(n^2/S) for randomized branching programs to compute the number of distinct elements over sliding windows. The same lower bound holds for computing the low-order bit of F_0 and computing any frequency moment F_k, k neq 1. This shows that those frequency moments and the decision problem F_0 mod 2 are strictly harder than element distinctness. We complement this lower bound with a T in O(n^2/S) comparison-based deterministic RAM algorithm for exactly computing F_k over sliding windows, nearly matching both our lower bound for the sliding-window version and the comparison-based lower bounds for the single-window version. We further exhibit a quantum algorithm for F_0 over sliding windows with T in O(n^{3/2}/S^{1/2}). Finally, we consider the computations of order statistics over sliding windows.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1212.437

Space-Optimal Majority in Population Protocols

Population protocols are a model of distributed computing, in which $n$ agents with limited local state interact randomly, and cooperate to collectively compute global predicates. An extensive series of papers, across different communities, has examined the computability and complexity characteristics of this model. Majority, or consensus, is a central task, in which agents need to collectively reach a decision as to which one of two states $A$ or $B$ had a higher initial count. Two complexity metrics are important: the time that a protocol requires to stabilize to an output decision, and the state space size that each agent requires. It is known that majority requires $\Omega(\log \log n)$ states per agent to allow for poly-logarithmic time stabilization, and that $O(\log^2 n)$ states are sufficient. Thus, there is an exponential gap between the upper and lower bounds. We address this question. We provide a new lower bound of $\Omega(\log n)$ states for any protocol which stabilizes in $O( n^{1-c} )$ time, for any $c > 0$ constant. This result is conditional on basic monotonicity and output assumptions, satisfied by all known protocols. Technically, it represents a significant departure from previous lower bounds. Instead of relying on dense configurations, we introduce a new surgery technique to construct executions which contradict the correctness of algorithms that stabilize too fast. Subsequently, our lower bound applies to general initial configurations. We give an algorithm for majority which uses $O(\log n)$ states, and stabilizes in $O(\log^2 n)$ time. Central to the algorithm is a new leaderless phase clock, which allows nodes to synchronize in phases of $\Theta(n \log{n})$ consecutive interactions using $O(\log n)$ states per node. We also employ our phase clock to build a leader election algorithm with $O(\log n )$ states, which stabilizes in $O(\log^2 n)$ time

Edit Distance for Pushdown Automata

The edit distance between two words $w_1, w_2$ is the minimal number of word operations (letter insertions, deletions, and substitutions) necessary to transform $w_1$ to $w_2$. The edit distance generalizes to languages $\mathcal{L}_1, \mathcal{L}_2$, where the edit distance from $\mathcal{L}_1$ to $\mathcal{L}_2$ is the minimal number $k$ such that for every word from $\mathcal{L}_1$ there exists a word in $\mathcal{L}_2$ with edit distance at most $k$. We study the edit distance computation problem between pushdown automata and their subclasses. The problem of computing edit distance to a pushdown automaton is undecidable, and in practice, the interesting question is to compute the edit distance from a pushdown automaton (the implementation, a standard model for programs with recursion) to a regular language (the specification). In this work, we present a complete picture of decidability and complexity for the following problems: (1)~deciding whether, for a given threshold $k$, the edit distance from a pushdown automaton to a finite automaton is at most $k$, and (2)~deciding whether the edit distance from a pushdown automaton to a finite automaton is finite.Comment: An extended version of a paper accepted to ICALP 2015 with the same title. The paper has been accepted to the LMCS journa