On-line Stream Merging with Max Span and Min Coverage

  • Authors:

  • Wun-Tat Chan;Tak-Wah Lam;Hing-Fung Ting;Prudence W. H. Wong

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong;Department of Computer Science, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong;Department of Computer Science, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong;Department of Computer Science, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

  • Venue:
  • Theory of Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2005

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

This paper introduces the notions of span and coverage for analyzing the performance of on-line algorithms for stream merging. It is shown that these two notions can solely determine the competitive ratio of any such algorithm. Furthermore, we devise a simple greedy algorithm that attains the ideal span and coverage, thus giving a better performance guarantee than existing algorithms. The new notions also allow us to obtain a tighter analysis of existing algorithms.