A note on measuring in P

  • Authors:
  • Olivier Powell

  • Affiliations:
  • Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, Université de Genève, rue du Général Dufour 24, CH-1211 Genève, 4, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

We revisit the problem of generalising Lutz's resource-bounded measure (RBM) to small complexity classes, and propose a definition of a random-based RBM on P=∪k∈N DTIME (O(nk)), which we argue as being a good generalisation to P of Lutz's RBM. We cannot unconditionally prove the existence of such a measure, but we give sufficient and necessary conditions for its existence. We also revisit µτ, an RBM for P defined by Strauss [Inform. Comput. 136(1) (1997) 1], and correct an erroneous claim concerning the relations between µτ and random sets. A correction to this mistake is then proposed, which is a less powerful but accurate relation between µτ and random sets.In order to obtain these results, we introduce a mathematical structure called a measuring system, which is a general setting that can be used to compare different RBMs on any fixed complexity class through a partial ordering relation.