A priority queue is presented that supports the operations insert and
find-min in worst-case constant time, and delete and delete-min on element x in
worst-case O(lg(min{w_x, q_x}+2)) time, where w_x (respectively q_x) is the
number of elements inserted after x (respectively before x) and are still
present at the time of the deletion of x. Our priority queue then has both the
working-set and the queueish properties, and more strongly it satisfies these
properties in the worst-case sense. We also define a new distribution-sensitive
property---the time-finger property, which encapsulates and generalizes both
the working-set and queueish properties, and present a priority queue that
satisfies this property.
In addition, we prove a strong implication that the working-set property is
equivalent to the unified bound (which is the minimum per operation among the
static finger, static optimality, and the working-set bounds). This latter
result is of tremendous interest by itself as it had gone unnoticed since the
introduction of such bounds by Sleater and Tarjan [JACM 1985]. Accordingly, our
priority queue satisfies other distribution-sensitive properties as the static
finger, static optimality, and the unified bound.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure