Basic Algorithms: Lecture 4

================ Start Lecture #4 ================

Homework solutions posted, give passwd

1.3 A Quick Mathematical Review

This is hard to type in using html. The book is fine and I will write the formulas on the board.

1.3.1 Summations

Definition: The sigma notation: ∑f(i) with i going from a to b.

Theorem: Assume 0<a≠1. Then ∑ai i from 0 to n = (an+1-1)/(a-1).

Proof: Cute trick. Multiply by a and subtract.

Theorem: ∑i from 1 to n = n(n+1)/2.

Proof: Pair the 1 with the n, the 2 with the (n-1), etc. This gives a bunch of (n+1)s. For n even it is clearly n/2 of them. For odd it is the same (look at it).

1.3.2 Logarithms and Exponents

Recall that logba = c means that bc=a. b is called the base and c is called the exponent.

What is meant by log(n) when we don't specify the base?

I assume you know what ab is. (Actually this is not so obvious. Whatever 2 raised to the square root of 3 means it is not writing 2 down the square root of 3 times and multiplying.) So you also know that ax+y=axay.

Theorem: Let a, b, and c be positive real numbers. To ease writing, I will use base 2 often. This is not needed. Any base would do.

  1. log(ac) = log(a)+log(c)
  2. log(a/c) = log(a) - log(c)
  3. log(ac) = c log(a)
  4. logc(a) = (log(a))/log(c): consider a = clogca and take log of both sides.
  5. clog(a) = a log(c): take log of both sides.
  6. (ba)c = bac
  7. babc = ba+c
  8. ba/bc = ba-c

Examples

Homework: C-1.12

Floor and Ceiling

⌊x⌋ is the greatest integer not greater than x. ⌈x⌉ is the least integer not less than x.

⌊5⌋ = ⌈5⌉ = 5

⌊5.2⌋ = 5 and ⌈5.2⌉ = 6

⌊-5.2⌋ = -6 and ⌈-5.2⌉ = -5

1.3.3 Simple Justification Techniques

By example

To prove the claim that there is a positive n satisfying nn>n+n, we merely have to note that 33>3+3.

By counterexample

To refute the claim that all positive n satisfy nn>n+n, we merely have to note that 11<1+1.

By contrapositive

"P implies Q" is the same as "not Q implies not P". So to show that in the world of positive integers "a2≥b2 implies that a≥b" we can show instead that "NOT(a≥b) implies NOT(a2≥b2)", i.e., that "a<b implies a2<b2", which is clear.

By contradiction

Assume what you want to prove is false and derive a contradiction.

Theorem: There are an infinite number of primes.

Proof: Assume not. Let the primes be p1 up to pk and consider the number A=p1p2…pk+1. A has remainder 1 when divided by any pi so cannot have any pi as a factor. Factor A into primes. None can be pi (A may or may not be prime). But we assumed that all the primes were pi. Contradiction. Hence our assumption that we could list all the primes was false.

By (complete) induction

The goal is to show the truth of some statement for all integers n≥1. It is enough to show two things.

  1. The statement is true for n=1
  2. IF the statement is true for all k<n, then it is true for n.

Theorem: A complete binary tree of height h has 2h-1 nodes.

Proof: We write NN(h) to mean the number of nodes in a complete binary tree of height h. A complete binary tree of height 1 is just a root so NN(1)=1 and 21-1 = 1. Now we assume NN(k)=2k-1 nodes for all k<h and consider a complete binary tree of height h. It is just two complete binary trees of height h-1 with new root to connect them.
So NN(h) = 2NN(h-1)+1 = 2(2h-1-1)+1 = 2h-1, as desired

Homework: R-1.9

Loop Invariants

Very similar to induction. Assume we have a loop with controlling variable i. For example a "for i←0 to n-1". We then associate with the loop a statement S(j) depending on j such that

  1. S(0) is true (just) before the loop begins
  2. IF S(j-1) holds before iteration j begins, then S(j) will hold when iteration j ends.
By induction we see that S(n) will be true when the nth iteration ends, i.e., when the loop ends.

I favor having array and loop indexes starting at zero. However, here it causes us some grief. We must remember that iteration j occurs when i=j-1.

Example:: Recall the countPositives algorithm

Algorithm countPositives
    Input: Non-negative integer n and an integer array A of size n.
    Output: The number of positive elements in A

pos ← 0
for i ← 0 to n-1 do
    if A[i] > 0 then
        pos ← pos + 1
return pos

Let S(j) be "pos equals the number of positive values in the first j elements of A".

Just before the loop starts S(0) is true vacuously. Indeed that is the purpose of the first statement in the algorithm.

Assume S(j-1) is true before iteration j, then iteration j (i.e., i=j-1) checks A[j-1] which is the jth element and updates pos accordingly. Hence S(j) is true after iteration j finishes.

Hence we conclude that S(n) is true when iteration n concludes, i.e. when the loop terminates. Thus pos is the correct value to return.

1.3.4 Basic Probability

Skipped for now.

1.4 Case Studies in Algorithm Analysis

1.4.1 A Quadratic-Time Prefix Averages Algorithm

We trivially improved innerProduct (same asymptotic complexity before and after). Now we will see a real improvement. For simplicity I do a slightly simpler algorithm than the book does, namely prefix sums.

Algorithm partialSumsSlow
    Input: Positive integer n and a real array A of size n
    Output: A real array B of size n with B[i]=A[0]+…+A[i]

for i ← 0 to n-1 do
    s ← 0
    for j ← 0 to i do
        s ← s + A[j]
    B[i] ← s
return B

The update of s is performed 1+2+…+n times. Hence the running time is Ω(1+2+…+n)=&Omega(n2). In fact it is easy to see that the time is &Theta(n2).

1.4.2 A Linear-Time Prefix Averages Algorithm

Algorithm partialSumsFast
    Input: Positive integer n and a real array A of size n
    Output: A real array B of size n with B[i]=A[0]+…+A[i]

s ← 0
for i ← 0 to n-1 do
    s ← s + A[i]
    B[i] ← s
return B

We just have a single loop and each statement inside is O(1), so the algorithm is O(n) (in fact Θ(n)).

Homework: Write partialSumsFastNoTemps, which is also Θ(n) time but avoids the use of s (it still uses i so my name is not great).

Allan Gottlieb