Here is an algorithm for finding kth smallest number in n element array using partition algorithm of Quicksort.
small(a,i,j,k)
{
if(i==j) return(a[i]);
else
{
m=partition(a,i,j);
if(m==k) return(a[m]);
else
{
if(m>k) small(a,i,m-1,k);
else small(a,m+1,j,k);
}
}
}
Where i,j are starting and ending indices of array(j-i=n(no of elements in array)) and k is kth smallest no to be found.
I want to know what is the best case,and average case of above algorithm and how in brief. I know we should not calculate termination condition in best case and also partition algorithm takes O(n). I do not want asymptotic notation but exact mathematical result if possible.
First of all, I'm assuming the array is sorted - something you didn't mention - because that code wouldn't otherwise work. And, well, this looks to me like a regular binary search.
Anyway...
The best case scenario is when either the array is one element long (you return immediately because i == j), or, for large values of n, if the middle position, m, is the same as k; in that case, no recursive calls are made and it returns immediately as well. That makes it O(1) in best case.
For the general case, consider that T(n) denotes the time taken to solve a problem of size n using your algorithm. We know that:
T(1) = c
T(n) = T(n/2) + c
Where c is a constant time operation (for example, the time to compare if i is the same as j, etc.). The general idea is that to solve a problem of size n, we consume some constant time c (to decide if m == k, if m > k, to calculate m, etc.), and then we consume the time taken to solve a problem of half the size.
Expanding the recurrence can help you derive a general formula, although it is pretty intuitive that this is O(log(n)):
T(n) = T(n/2) + c = T(n/4) + c + c = T(n/8) + c + c + c = ... = T(1) + c*log(n) = c*(log(n) + 1)
That should be the exact mathematical result. The algorithm runs in O(log(n)) time. An average case analysis is harder because you need to know the conditions in which the algorithm will be used. What is the typical size of the array? The typical size of k? What is the mos likely position for k in the array? If it's in the middle, for example, the average case may be O(1). It really depends on how you use this.
Related
According to Wikipedia, partition-based selection algorithms such as quickselect have runtime of O(n), but I am not convinced by it. Can anyone explain why it is O(n)?
In the normal quick-sort, the runtime is O(n log n). Every time we partition the branch into two branches (greater than the pivot and lesser than the pivot), we need to continue the process in both branches, whereas quickselect only needs to process one branch. I totally understand these points.
However, if you think in the Binary Search algorithm, after we chose the middle element, we are also searching only one side of the branch. So does that make the algorithm O(1)? No, of course, the Binary Search Algorithm is still O(log N) instead of O(1). This is also the same thing as the search element in a Binary Search Tree. We only search for one side, but we still consider O(log n) instead of O(1).
Can someone explain why in quickselect, if we continue the search in one side of pivot, it is considered O(1) instead of O(log n)? I consider the algorithm to be O(n log n), O(N) for the partitioning, and O(log n) for the number of times to continue finding.
There are several different selection algorithms, from the much simpler quickselect (expected O(n), worst-case O(n2)) to the more complex median-of-medians algorithm (Θ(n)). Both of these algorithms work by using a quicksort partitioning step (time O(n)) to rearrange the elements and position one element into its proper position. If that element is at the index in question, we're done and can just return that element. Otherwise, we determine which side to recurse on and recurse there.
Let's now make a very strong assumption - suppose that we're using quickselect (pick the pivot randomly) and on each iteration we manage to guess the exact middle of the array. In that case, our algorithm will work like this: we do a partition step, throw away half of the array, then recursively process one half of the array. This means that on each recursive call we end up doing work proportional to the length of the array at that level, but that length keeps decreasing by a factor of two on each iteration. If we work out the math (ignoring constant factors, etc.) we end up getting the following time:
Work at the first level: n
Work after one recursive call: n / 2
Work after two recursive calls: n / 4
Work after three recursive calls: n / 8
...
This means that the total work done is given by
n + n / 2 + n / 4 + n / 8 + n / 16 + ... = n (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...)
Notice that this last term is n times the sum of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc. If you work out this infinite sum, despite the fact that there are infinitely many terms, the total sum is exactly 2. This means that the total work is
n + n / 2 + n / 4 + n / 8 + n / 16 + ... = n (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...) = 2n
This may seem weird, but the idea is that if we do linear work on each level but keep cutting the array in half, we end up doing only roughly 2n work.
An important detail here is that there are indeed O(log n) different iterations here, but not all of them are doing an equal amount of work. Indeed, each iteration does half as much work as the previous iteration. If we ignore the fact that the work is decreasing, you can conclude that the work is O(n log n), which is correct but not a tight bound. This more precise analysis, which uses the fact that the work done keeps decreasing on each iteration, gives the O(n) runtime.
Of course, this is a very optimistic assumption - we almost never get a 50/50 split! - but using a more powerful version of this analysis, you can say that if you can guarantee any constant factor split, the total work done is only some constant multiple of n. If we pick a totally random element on each iteration (as we do in quickselect), then on expectation we only need to pick two elements before we end up picking some pivot element in the middle 50% of the array, which means that, on expectation, only two rounds of picking a pivot are required before we end up picking something that gives a 25/75 split. This is where the expected runtime of O(n) for quickselect comes from.
A formal analysis of the median-of-medians algorithm is much harder because the recurrence is difficult and not easy to analyze. Intuitively, the algorithm works by doing a small amount of work to guarantee a good pivot is chosen. However, because there are two different recursive calls made, an analysis like the above won't work correctly. You can either use an advanced result called the Akra-Bazzi theorem, or use the formal definition of big-O to explicitly prove that the runtime is O(n). For a more detailed analysis, check out "Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition" by Cormen, Leisserson, Rivest, and Stein.
Let me try to explain the difference between selection & binary search.
Binary search algorithm in each step does O(1) operations. Totally there are log(N) steps and this makes it O(log(N))
Selection algorithm in each step performs O(n) operations. But this 'n' keeps on reducing by half each time. There are totally log(N) steps.
This makes it N + N/2 + N/4 + ... + 1 (log(N) times) = 2N = O(N)
For binary search it is 1 + 1 + ... (log(N) times) = O(logN)
In Quicksort, the recursion tree is lg(N) levels deep and each of these levels requires O(N) amount of work. So the total running time is O(NlgN).
In Quickselect, the recurision tree is lg(N) levels deep and each level requires only half the work of the level above it. This produces the following:
N * (1/1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...)
or
N * Summation(1/i^2)
1 < i <= lgN
The important thing to note here is that i goes from 1 to lgN, but not from 1 to N and also not from 1 to infinity.
The summation evaluates to 2. Hence Quickselect = O(2N).
Quicksort does not have a big-O of nlogn - it's worst case runtime is n^2.
I assume you're asking about Hoare's Selection Algorithm (or quickselect) not the naive selection algorithm that is O(kn). Like quicksort, quickselect has a worst case runtime of O(n^2) (if bad pivots are chosen), not O(n). It can run in expectation time n because it's only sorting one side, as you point out.
Because for selection, you're not sorting, necessarily. You can simply count how many items there are which have any given value. So an O(n) median can be performed by counting how many times each value comes up, and picking the value that has 50% of items above and below it. It's 1 pass through the array, simply incrementing a counter for each element in the array, so it's O(n).
For example, if you have an array "a" of 8 bit numbers, you can do the following:
int histogram [ 256 ];
for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
{
histogram [ i ] = 0;
}
for (i = 0; i < numItems; i++)
{
histogram [ a [ i ] ]++;
}
i = 0;
sum = 0;
while (sum < (numItems / 2))
{
sum += histogram [ i ];
i++;
}
At the end, the variable "i" will contain the 8-bit value of the median. It was about 1.5 passes through the array "a". Once through the entire array to count the values, and half through it again to get the final value.
How do I prove that this algorithm is O(loglogn)
i <-- 2
while i < n
i <-- i*i
Well, I believe we should first start with n / 2^k < 1, but that will yield O(logn). Any ideas?
I want to look at this in a simple way, what happends after one iteration, after two iterations, and after k iterations, I think this way I'll be able to understand better how to compute this correctly. What do you think about this approach? I'm new to this, so excuse me.
Let us use the name A for the presented algorithm. Let us further assume that the input variable is n.
Then, strictly speaking, A is not in the runtime complexity class O(log log n). A must be in (Omega)(n), i.e. in terms of runtime complexity, it is at least linear. Why? There is i*i, a multiplication that depends on i that depends on n. A naive multiplication approach might require quadratic runtime complexity. More sophisticated approaches will reduce the exponent, but not below linear in terms of n.
For the sake of completeness, the comparison < is also a linear operation.
For the purpose of the question, we could assume that multiplication and comparison is done in constant time. Then, we can formulate the question: How often do we have to apply the constant time operations > and * until A terminates for a given n?
Simply speaking, the multiplication reduces the effort logarithmic and the iterative application leads to a further logarithmic reduce. How can we show this? Thankfully to the simple structure of A, we can transform A to an equation that we can solve directly.
A changes i to the power of 2 and does this repeatedly. Therefore, A calculates 2^(2^k). When is 2^(2^k) = n? To solve this for k, we apply the logarithm (base 2) two times, i.e., with ignoring the bases, we get k = log log n. The < can be ignored due to the O notation.
To answer the very last part of the original question, we can also look at examples for each iteration. We can note the state of i at the end of the while loop body for each iteration of the while loop:
1: i = 4 = 2^2 = 2^(2^1)
2: i = 16 = 4*4 = (2^2)*(2^2) = 2^(2^2)
3: i = 256 = 16*16 = 4*4 = (2^2)*(2^2)*(2^2)*(2^2) = 2^(2^3)
4: i = 65536 = 256*256 = 16*16*16*16 = ... = 2^(2^4)
...
k: i = ... = 2^(2^k)
Is the time complexity of the following code O(NV^2)?
for i from 1 to N:
for j from 1 to V:
for k from 1 to A[i]://max(A) = V
z = z + k
yeah,whenever we talk about O-notation, we always think about the upper-bound(OR the worst case).
So,the complexity for this code will be equal to
O(N*V*maximum_value_of_A)
=O(N*V*V) // since,maximum value of A=V,so third loop can maximally iterate from 1 to V---V times
=O(N*V^2).
For sure it is O(NV^2) as it means the code is never slower than that. Because max(A) = V, you can say the worst case would be when at every index of A there is V. If so, then the complexity can be limited to O(NV*V).
You can calculate very roughly that the complexity of the for k loop can be O(avg(A)). This allows us to say that the whole function is Omega(NV*avg(A)), where avg(A) <= V.
Theta notation (meaning asympthotical complexity) would can be stated like Theta(NV*O(V)), O(V) representing complexity of a function which will never grow faster than V, but is not constant.
This is a question from Introduction to Algorithms By Cormen. But this isn't a homework problem instead self-study.
There is an array of length n. Consider a modification to merge sort in which n/k sublists each of length k are sorted using insertion sort and then merged using merging mechanism, where k is a value to be determined.
The relationship between n and k isn't known. The length of array is n. k sublists of n/k means n * (n/k) equals n elements of the array. Hence k is simply a limit at which the splitting of array for use with merge-sort is stopped and instead insertion-sort is used because of its smaller constant factor.
I was able to do the mathematical proof that the modified algorithm works in Θ(n*k + n*lg(n/k)) worst-case time. Now the book went on to say to
find the largest value of k as a function of n for which this modified algorithm has the same running time as standard merge sort, in terms of Θ notation. How should we choose k in practice?
Now this got me thinking for a lot of time but I couldn't come up with anything. I tried to solve
n*k + n*lg(n/k) = n*lg(n) for a relationship. I thought that finding an equality for the 2 running times would give me the limit and greater can be checked using simple hit-and-trial.
I solved it like this
n k + n lg(n/k) = n lg(n)
k + lg(n/k) = lg(n)
lg(2^k) + lg(n/k) = lg(n)
(2^k * n)/k = n
2^k = k
But it gave me 2 ^ k = k which doesn't show any relationship. What is the relationship? I think I might have taken the wrong equation for finding the relationship.
I can implement the algorithm and I suppose adding an if (length_Array < k) statement in the merge_sort function here(Github link of merge sort implementation) for calling insertion sort would be good enough. But how do I choose k in real life?
Well, this is a mathematical minimization problem, and to solve it, we need some basic calculus.
We need to find the value of k for which d[n*k + n*lg(n/k)] / dk == 0.
We should also check for the edge cases, which are k == n, and k == 1.
The candidate for the value of k that will give the minimal result for n*k + n*lg(n/k) is the minimum in the required range, and is thus the optimal value of k.
Attachment, solving the derivitives equation:
d[n*k + n*lg(n/k)] / dk = d[n*k + nlg(n) - nlg(k)] / dk
= n + 0 - n*1/k = n - n/k
=>
n - n/k = 0 => n = n/k => 1/k = 1 => k = 1
Now, we have the candidates: k=n, k=1. For k=n we get O(n^2), thus we conclude optimal k is k == 1.
Note that we found the derivitives on the function from the big Theta, and not on the exact complexity function that uses the needed constants.
Doing this on the exact complexity function, with all the constants might yield a bit different end result - but the way to solve it is pretty much the same, only take derivitives from a different function.
maybe k should be lg(n)
theta(nk + nlog(n/k)) have two terms, we have the assumption that k>=1, so the second term is less than nlog(n).
only when k=lg(n), the whole result is theta(nlog(n))
According to Wikipedia, partition-based selection algorithms such as quickselect have runtime of O(n), but I am not convinced by it. Can anyone explain why it is O(n)?
In the normal quick-sort, the runtime is O(n log n). Every time we partition the branch into two branches (greater than the pivot and lesser than the pivot), we need to continue the process in both branches, whereas quickselect only needs to process one branch. I totally understand these points.
However, if you think in the Binary Search algorithm, after we chose the middle element, we are also searching only one side of the branch. So does that make the algorithm O(1)? No, of course, the Binary Search Algorithm is still O(log N) instead of O(1). This is also the same thing as the search element in a Binary Search Tree. We only search for one side, but we still consider O(log n) instead of O(1).
Can someone explain why in quickselect, if we continue the search in one side of pivot, it is considered O(1) instead of O(log n)? I consider the algorithm to be O(n log n), O(N) for the partitioning, and O(log n) for the number of times to continue finding.
There are several different selection algorithms, from the much simpler quickselect (expected O(n), worst-case O(n2)) to the more complex median-of-medians algorithm (Θ(n)). Both of these algorithms work by using a quicksort partitioning step (time O(n)) to rearrange the elements and position one element into its proper position. If that element is at the index in question, we're done and can just return that element. Otherwise, we determine which side to recurse on and recurse there.
Let's now make a very strong assumption - suppose that we're using quickselect (pick the pivot randomly) and on each iteration we manage to guess the exact middle of the array. In that case, our algorithm will work like this: we do a partition step, throw away half of the array, then recursively process one half of the array. This means that on each recursive call we end up doing work proportional to the length of the array at that level, but that length keeps decreasing by a factor of two on each iteration. If we work out the math (ignoring constant factors, etc.) we end up getting the following time:
Work at the first level: n
Work after one recursive call: n / 2
Work after two recursive calls: n / 4
Work after three recursive calls: n / 8
...
This means that the total work done is given by
n + n / 2 + n / 4 + n / 8 + n / 16 + ... = n (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...)
Notice that this last term is n times the sum of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc. If you work out this infinite sum, despite the fact that there are infinitely many terms, the total sum is exactly 2. This means that the total work is
n + n / 2 + n / 4 + n / 8 + n / 16 + ... = n (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...) = 2n
This may seem weird, but the idea is that if we do linear work on each level but keep cutting the array in half, we end up doing only roughly 2n work.
An important detail here is that there are indeed O(log n) different iterations here, but not all of them are doing an equal amount of work. Indeed, each iteration does half as much work as the previous iteration. If we ignore the fact that the work is decreasing, you can conclude that the work is O(n log n), which is correct but not a tight bound. This more precise analysis, which uses the fact that the work done keeps decreasing on each iteration, gives the O(n) runtime.
Of course, this is a very optimistic assumption - we almost never get a 50/50 split! - but using a more powerful version of this analysis, you can say that if you can guarantee any constant factor split, the total work done is only some constant multiple of n. If we pick a totally random element on each iteration (as we do in quickselect), then on expectation we only need to pick two elements before we end up picking some pivot element in the middle 50% of the array, which means that, on expectation, only two rounds of picking a pivot are required before we end up picking something that gives a 25/75 split. This is where the expected runtime of O(n) for quickselect comes from.
A formal analysis of the median-of-medians algorithm is much harder because the recurrence is difficult and not easy to analyze. Intuitively, the algorithm works by doing a small amount of work to guarantee a good pivot is chosen. However, because there are two different recursive calls made, an analysis like the above won't work correctly. You can either use an advanced result called the Akra-Bazzi theorem, or use the formal definition of big-O to explicitly prove that the runtime is O(n). For a more detailed analysis, check out "Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition" by Cormen, Leisserson, Rivest, and Stein.
Let me try to explain the difference between selection & binary search.
Binary search algorithm in each step does O(1) operations. Totally there are log(N) steps and this makes it O(log(N))
Selection algorithm in each step performs O(n) operations. But this 'n' keeps on reducing by half each time. There are totally log(N) steps.
This makes it N + N/2 + N/4 + ... + 1 (log(N) times) = 2N = O(N)
For binary search it is 1 + 1 + ... (log(N) times) = O(logN)
In Quicksort, the recursion tree is lg(N) levels deep and each of these levels requires O(N) amount of work. So the total running time is O(NlgN).
In Quickselect, the recurision tree is lg(N) levels deep and each level requires only half the work of the level above it. This produces the following:
N * (1/1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...)
or
N * Summation(1/i^2)
1 < i <= lgN
The important thing to note here is that i goes from 1 to lgN, but not from 1 to N and also not from 1 to infinity.
The summation evaluates to 2. Hence Quickselect = O(2N).
Quicksort does not have a big-O of nlogn - it's worst case runtime is n^2.
I assume you're asking about Hoare's Selection Algorithm (or quickselect) not the naive selection algorithm that is O(kn). Like quicksort, quickselect has a worst case runtime of O(n^2) (if bad pivots are chosen), not O(n). It can run in expectation time n because it's only sorting one side, as you point out.
Because for selection, you're not sorting, necessarily. You can simply count how many items there are which have any given value. So an O(n) median can be performed by counting how many times each value comes up, and picking the value that has 50% of items above and below it. It's 1 pass through the array, simply incrementing a counter for each element in the array, so it's O(n).
For example, if you have an array "a" of 8 bit numbers, you can do the following:
int histogram [ 256 ];
for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
{
histogram [ i ] = 0;
}
for (i = 0; i < numItems; i++)
{
histogram [ a [ i ] ]++;
}
i = 0;
sum = 0;
while (sum < (numItems / 2))
{
sum += histogram [ i ];
i++;
}
At the end, the variable "i" will contain the 8-bit value of the median. It was about 1.5 passes through the array "a". Once through the entire array to count the values, and half through it again to get the final value.