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5
votes
2answers
140 views

difference between accounting and potential methods in Amortized Analysis

I was going through the Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al.In the chapter titled Amortized Analysis,the difference between accounting and potential methods is given like this The ...
6
votes
1answer
123 views

Bin sorting problem - Please help categorize

I have a problem I am developing a solution for and currently I solve it with a brute force solution that checks all possibilities. It works for small numbers of bins but I'd like to work with a ...
13
votes
2answers
402 views

Trying to understand the 2N lnN compares for quicksort

I was going through the analysis of quicksort in Sedgewick's Algorithms book. He creates the following recurrence relation for number of compares in quicksort while sorting an array of N distinct ...
6
votes
6answers
707 views

Why is binary search,which needs sorted data, considered better than linear search?

I have always heard that linear search is a naive approach and binary search is better than it in performance due to better asymptotic complexity. But I never understood why is it better than linear ...
0
votes
1answer
37 views

clarification about amortized analysis

I was going through an article here In the section named Aggregate Method ,the author says Then summing over the entire sequence, all the 1's sum to O(n), and all the di also sum to O(n). That ...
2
votes
1answer
129 views

Algorithm in undirected BFS graph

I'm trying to put together an algorithm that will display the node degree for every node in a breadth first tree graph (assume BFS was called). Assume it's an undirected graph. I'm not sure how to ...
1
vote
1answer
449 views

Matrix Pattern Recognition Algorithm for a 2D space

I have a picture that I elaborate with my program to obtain a list of coordinates. There is a matrix represented in the image. In an ideal test I would get only the sixteen central points of each ...
5
votes
4answers
235 views

Find the peak of each islands in sparse matrix

I have a sparse matrix that contains several islands of unknown size. I would like to find the highest peak of each islands. Consider this matrix as an example: 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 ...
0
votes
1answer
169 views

Priority queue for Kruskal's algorithm with running time O(E lg V)

I'm reviewing my notes on Kruskal's algorithm and have a question about getting the runtime down to O(E lg V). By using a PQ with edges and a boolean array of which vertices we have added to our tree ...
20
votes
3answers
2k views

Divide and Conquer algorithms – Why not split in more parts than two?

In divide and conquer algorithms such as quicksort and mergesort, the input is usually (at least in introductory texts) split in two, and the two smaller data sets are then dealt with recursively. It ...
1
vote
4answers
295 views

Approach to simplifying an algorithm

For completely random reasons*, I wrote some code that calculates and displays the following expression: P=1*(2+2)(3+3+3)(4+4+4+4)..(n+n...… Which is equivalent to (n!)^2 The version I wrote ...
5
votes
6answers
566 views

How meaningful is the Big-O time complexity of an algorithm?

Programmers often talk about the time complexity of an algorithm, e.g. O(log n) or O(n^2). Time complexity classifications are made as the input size goes to infinity, but ironically infinite input ...
6
votes
1answer
377 views

Possible Damerau-Levenshtein improvement?

I recently implemented the Damerau-Levenshtein distance algorithm from the pseudocode on Wikipedia. I couldn't find any explanation of exactly how it works and the pseudocode uses completely ...
0
votes
2answers
287 views

Does this version of insertion sort have O(n) complexity for best case?

for ( i = 1 ; i <= N ; i++ ) { for ( j = 0 ; j < i ; j++ ) { if ( arr[j] > arr[i] ) { temp = arr[j] ; arr[j] = arr[i] ; for ( k = i ; k > j ; k-- ) ...
5
votes
5answers
634 views

Why interviewers want Optimal Algorithms

In an interview with a software company they asked me some algorithm design questions. Being strong in mathematics I was able to solve it mathematically, but each time when I propose my algorithm ...
3
votes
1answer
372 views

A* Algorithm Completeness Proof

The A* Algorithm is the optimal (provided the heuristic function is underestimated), complete & admissible (provided some conditions). I know the proofs of admissibility & optimality. But how ...
2
votes
1answer
139 views

How to compute amoritized cost for a dynamic array?

I am trying to understand how to do the amortized cost for a dynamic table. Suppose we are using the accounting method. Let A of size m be an array of n elements. When n = m, then we create a new ...
2
votes
1answer
160 views

How much times command executed? Looking for mistake

I have following piece of code: int sum = 0; for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) for (int j = 1; j <= N; j++) for (int k = 1; k <= N; k = k*2) for (int h = 1; h <= k; ...
1
vote
3answers
1k views

finding the time complexity of the following program

I need to find the time complexity in terms of Big Oh notation for the following program which computes the factorial of a given number: The program goes like this: public int fact(int n){ if (n ...
1
vote
1answer
210 views

Sublinear Extra Space MergeSort

I am reviewing basic algorithms from a book called Algorithms by Robert Sedgewick, and I came across a problem in MergeSort that I am, sad to say, having difficulty solving. The problem is below: ...
0
votes
1answer
142 views

Help with algorithmic complexity in custom merge sort implementation

I've got an implementation of the merge sort in C++ using a custom doubly linked list. I'm coming up with a big O complexity of n^2, based on the merge_sort() > slice operation. But, from what I've ...
1
vote
1answer
290 views

How should I compress a file with multiple bytes that are the same with Huffman coding?

On my great quest for compressing/decompressing files with a Java implementation of Huffman coding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding) for a school assignment, I am now at the point of ...
2
votes
4answers
316 views

How to discriminate from two nodes with identical frequencies in a Huffman's tree?

Still on my quest to compress/decompress files with a Java implementation of Huffman's coding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding) for a school assignment. From the Wikipedia page, I quote: ...
1
vote
2answers
176 views

need explanation on amortization in algorithm

I am a learning algorithm analysis and came across a analysis tool for understanding the running time of an algorithm with widely varying performance which is called as amortization. The autor quotes ...
1
vote
1answer
126 views

Does it matter the direction of a Huffman's tree child node?

So, I'm on my quest about creating a Java implementation of Huffman's algorithm for compressing/decompressing files (as you might know, ever since Why create a Huffman tree per character instead of a ...
2
votes
1answer
273 views

Why create a Huffman tree per character instead of a Node?

For a school assignment we're supposed to make a Java implementation of a compressor/decompresser using Huffman's algorithm. I've been reading a bit about it, specially this C++ tutorial: ...
10
votes
7answers
1k views

Big Oh notation does not mention constant value

I am a programmer and have just started reading Algorithms. I am not completely convinced with the notations namely Bog Oh, Big Omega and Big Theta. The reason is by definition of Big Oh, it states ...