CS 15-451 ALGORITHMS 9 September 2003 Lecture #5 Manuel & Avrim Blum In this lecture, we will see some simple models of computation, each with a precise definition of what counts as a step of computation. EXAMPLE 1: Multiply/divide 2 numbers using the standard grade school multiplication algorithm. Count each digit printed on paper as 1 step. All other computation is free. QUESTION: How many steps does it take to multiply 2 n-bit numbers? ANSWER: n^2 + 2n steps: 1011 x 1101 ---- 1011 n print steps 0000 n 1011 n 1011 n ------- 10001111 2n print steps Total = n^2 + 2n print steps QUESTION: How many (print) steps does the grade school division algorithm take to divide a 2n bit number by an n bit number to get an n bit quotient and an n bit remainder? EXAMPLE 2: Exchange sort. Given a shelf containing n unordered books to be arranged alphabetically. The only allowed step is to exchange two books. Such an exchange counts 1 step. All other (planning) work is free (doesn't count any steps). QUESTION: How many exchanges are necessary (lower bound) & sufficient (upper bound) to sort the n books? UPPER BOUND: n-1 is clearly sufficient. (Why?) But is n-1 necessary? If n is even, and no book is in its correct location, then n/2 exchanges are necessary to "touch" all books. But can one argue that for some arrangements of the books, n-1 steps is necessary to sort the books? LOWER BOUND: n-1 is necessary: Create a graph in which a directed edge i -> j means that that the book in location i must end up at location j. Note that this is a special kind of directed graph: It is a permutation; a set of cycles! (Why? Every book points to SOME location, perhaps its own location. In addition, no two books point to the SAME location.) 1. What is the effect of exchanging any two elements (books) that are in the same cycle? 2. What is the effect of exchanging any two elements that are in different cycles? In each case, explain what happens to the number of cycles in the permutation. 3. How many cycles are in the final sorted array? Now put 1,2,3 together to give an arrangement that requires n-1 exchanges. EXAMPLE 3: Comparison tree model for sorting n distinct elements: Each node of the tree compares two (distinct) elements: ai < aj ? YES/ \NO / \ If elements are not distinct, comparisons may be taken to be ai < = > aj ? < rather than < , or ternary: / | \ - / | \ Each such comparison counts one step. Example: Here is a partial tree for sorting 3 distinct elements a1,a2, a3: a1. This is NOT obvious. In fact, an algorithm to find the Median of n elements does NOT have to find : if it did, then finding the median would require at least log ((n choose n/2)*(n/2)!) = OMEGA(n log n) comparisons (why?), and we know from Lecture 4 that the median can be found with just O(n) comparisons. Nevertheless, we have the theorem: THEOREM: Any algorithm to find the second largest of n elements must actually find the largest, ie must find the ordered pair of those n elements. This means that the leaves of any tree to find the second largest can actually be labelled with the ordered pair . PROOF: Suppose to the contrary that the largest element is not found but the second largest is found. SOME element (the Largest) necessarily won all comparisons. That element is not unique (else the Largest would be determined), so there must be at least two elements that never lost any comparisons. Both are candidates for Largest (why?), and therefore both are candidates for Second Largest (Why?). It follows that the second largest has not yet been identified, contrary to our assumption. -><- A BETTER INFORMATION THEORETIC LOWER BOUND: There are n(n-1) possible solution leaves, (NOT n(n-1)/2. Why?). The comparison tree is binary. Hence the minimum depth of any tree to solve this problem -- and therefore the miniminum number of comparisons to solve it -- must be at least log n(n-1) , which is approximately = 2(log n). A BETTER LOWER BOUND: n-1. Why? A BETTER UPPER BOUND: n-1 + (log n). Why? Trees are a nice theoretical concept for formalizing the meaning of a comparison step and the general form of a comparison tree algorithm, and for developing lower bounds. For upper bounds, however, it is generally better to think of algorithms in the normal way that they are constructed, and then to count the number of comparisons that algorithm takes, bearing in mind that for any specific n, one could in principle lay out the comparison tree. For the problem at hand, to find the Maximum element using the fewest number of comparisons, consider a tennis style tournament to find the best player. This is represented by a DIFFERENT kind of tree, the tennis tournament tree: 6 4 2 1 8 7 3 5 First round \ / \ / \ / \ / 6 2 8 5 Second round \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ 6 8 Third round \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / 8 Winner! It is tempting to say that the last player (6) to lose to the winner (8) is the second best player, but this is NOT necessarily true! Why? It is true, however, that the 2nd best player necessarily lost to the best player -- as first pointed out by Lewis Carroll! (Of course, this assumes that the ith best player always beats the i+1st best player, and that "beating" is transitive: if i beats j and j beats k then i beats k.) In the above example, players 7,5,6 lost to 8. The 2nd best player can be found by a tournament among these log n players: 7 5 6 \ / | 7 6 \ / \ / 7 TIGHTER BOUNDS? At this point, our lower bound on finding the second largest is n-1, while our upper bound is n-1 + (log n). What is the true state of affairs? Must the lower bound be raised? Or can the upper bound be lowered? Lower Bounds to Find the Median: * log n This information theoretic lower bound requires the observation that any one of the n elements can be the median. * n-1 If less than n-1 comparisons are made, then there are at least 2 candidates for median. Why? * 3n/2 - O(1) To find the median, every element must be compared either directly or indirectly to the median. Why? To get the 3n/2 lower bound for the median, it helps to have a little terminology about the various kinds of comparisons possible between two elements, say 3 and 7: 3 3 Direct comparison -> / \ 2 7 Indirect comparisons 5 / \ <- Not a between 3 and 7: / 3 7 comparison of any 7 kind between 3 and 7. In other words, these 2 comparisons give no information whatsoever about the relation between 3 and 7. An adversary can make sure that at least (n-1)/2 comparisons are between elements that are on opposite sides of the median. How? In addition, to find the median, every element must be compared either directly or indirectly to the median. (Why? This takes some thought and, maybe, a cup of coffee.) This latter ensures that there must be at least n-1 additional comparisons. The total number of comparisons therefore comes to 3n/2 - O(1). Historical note: the best known lower bound is 2n by Bent and John 1985. The best known upper bound is 3n by Schonhage, Paterson and Pippenger 1976. PROBLEM: The of n elements. Give tight upper and lower bounds on the number of comparisons required to find the largest and smallest of n distinct integers. Problem: How many comparisons are necessary and sufficient to determine if n real numbers a1 .. an are all distinct? LOWER BOUND: (necessary) number of steps = n-1. UPPER BOUND: (sufficient) number of steps = number of comparisons sufficient to sort + number of comparisons to check successive elts in the sorted array. O(n log n) A BETTER (ADVERSARY) LOWER BOUND: sorting is NECESSARY! If two adjacent elements of the sorted array are not compared, then there is no way to tell (in the comparison tree model) whether or not they are equal. Therefore log2(n!) is necessary (and sufficient). The IBM selectric typewriter ribbon problem. CS 15-451 ALGORITHMS 11 September 2003 Lecture #6 Manuel & Avrim Blum In this lecture, we look in great depth at a particular problem: Binary Search in a 2-Dimensional Sorted Array. While the problem is quite nice in itself, the main point of this lecture is to see how to tighten the upper and lower bounds (thumbscrews) on a problem. When you can do it, tightening the bounds is a great way to get a new and possibly optimal algorithm for a problem. Problem NAME: Lookup In a Sorted 2-dimensional Array (LISA). INPUT: 1. M = an nxn matrix of distinct integers. (M denotes the entry in row i column j). Rows and columns of M are both in sorted order. Specifically: rows are sorted: M < M for j < M for i such that x = M if such exists in M. "No such element" otherwise. Definition of a COMPUTATION STEP: each lookup in the array counts one step. Think of the array as having its elements covered by the gray paint used in lotteries. Each entry that has its gray paint scraped off counts one step. Problem: Give an algorithm to solve LISA. Count the number of steps that your algorithm takes in the worst case (on the worst possible example). This is an UPPER BOUND on the number of steps to solve this problem. (Equivalently, this is the number of steps SUFFICIENT to solve this problem -- in the worst case.) An OPTIMAL algorithm uses the few possible number of lookups in the worst case. Give a LOWER BOUND on the number of steps that any algorithm for this problem must take (in the worst case). (Equivalently, this is the number of steps NECESSARY to solve this problem.) Try to make your upper and lower bounds as tight as you can make them. The tightest bounds get the most points. SOLUTIONS: An UPPER BOUND: Compare the given x to all elements of the given M. This suffices to solve the problem in n^2 steps. A BETTER UPPER BOUND: Do a binary search for x in each column of M. This takes log n steps per column, or n log n steps altogether. A LOWER BOUND: Ok, so its not such a great (lower) bound, but it is a bound: if you don't lookup any elements in M, then there is no way to tell if x is in M. So a lower bound is 1. A BETTER LOWER BOUND: log n. Suppose a birdie (correctly) tells you that all elements of M OUTSIDE of column 1 are bigger than x. This additional information cannot force you or any algorithm to take even more steps than would otherwise be taken. (Why?) But it reduces the problem to a binary search in column 1, which necessarily requires at least log n lookups. An INFORMATION THEORETIC LOWER BOUND: There are n^2 + 1 possible answers. The depth of any ternary (three-way branching) tree to solve the problem is necessarily at least log3(n^2 + 1) -- in the worst case. : : Tight upper and lower bounds! : : QUESTION: Let M denote an mxn matrix of integers. Suppose all the COLUMNS of M are sorted first, each in increasing order, to get M1: a1 b1 c1 d1 M1 = a2 b2 c2 d2 a3 b3 c3 d3 a4 b4 c4 d4 Suppose then that all the ROWS of M1 are sorted in increasing order to get M2. Since the rows of M2 were sorted last, they are clearly in sorted order. The question is whether the columns of M2 remain sorted or must be sorted again. ANSWER: I think the answer is YES: columns of M2 do not have to be sorted again. They will all remain in sorted order. Does this prove it? WHY? Either confirm the following proof, fix it, or give a counterexample. To simplify, assume all elts of M are distinct. Since rows of M1 are sorted to create M2, only columns (not rows) of M2 can be out of order in M2. Let M denote the element in location (row i column j) of M. Note that M2<1,1> is the minimum element of M, since sorting the columns of M puts the minimum elt of M in row 1 of M1, then sorting the rows of M1 puts it in column 1 of M2, so it ends up in location <1,1> of M2. Note that the first column of M2 must be sorted, else there is an element <1,i+1> in M2 that is smaller (out of order) than <1,i> in M2. But element <1,i+1> in M2 came from in M1, which was greater than in M1, which in turn is greater or equal to <1,i> in M2. -><-. In general, suppose to the contrary that column j of M2 is out of order. Specifically, M2 > M2 . But M2 is the jth smallest elt of M1 row i, while M2 is the jth smallest elt of M1 row i+1. The latter is necessarily larger than j-1 other elements in its row, i+1, therefore larger than j elements in row i, therefore at least as large as M2. -><-