Dynamic problem (algorithms)

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In computer science, dynamic problems are problems stated in terms of changing input data. In its most general form, a problem in this category is usually stated as follows:

Contents

Problems in this class have the following measures of complexity:

The overall set of computations for a dynamic problem is called a dynamic algorithm.

Many algorithmic problems stated in terms of fixed input data (called static problems in this context and solved by static algorithms) have meaningful dynamic versions.

Special cases

Incremental algorithms, or online algorithms, are algorithms in which only additions of elements are allowed, possibly starting from empty/trivial input data.

Decremental algorithms are algorithms in which only deletions of elements are allowed, starting with the initialization of a full data structure.

If both additions and deletions are allowed, the algorithm is sometimes called fully dynamic.

Examples

Maximal element

Static problem
For a set of N numbers find the maximal one.

The problem may be solved in O(N) time.

Dynamic problem
For an initial set of N numbers, dynamically maintain the maximal one when insertions and deletions are allowed.

This is just the priority queue maintenance problem allowing for insertions and deletions; it can be solved, for example, using a binary heap in time for an update and time for a query, with setup time (i.e., the initial processing of the data). Note that the value of N may change during the life of the structure.

Graphs

Given a graph, maintain its parameters, such as connectivity, maximal degree, shortest paths, etc., when insertion and deletion of its edges are allowed. [1]

Examples:

See also

References

  1. D. Eppstein, Z. Galil, and G. F. Italiano. "Dynamic graph algorithms". In CRC Handbook of Algorithms and Theory of Computation, Chapter 22. CRC Press, 1997.
  2. Eppstein, David; Italiano, Giuseppe; Nissenzweig, Amnon (1997). "Sparsification—a technique for speeding up dynamic graph algorithms". Journal of the ACM. 44 (5): 669–696.
  3. Henzinger, Monika; King, Valerie (2001). "Maintaining minimum spanning forests in dynamic graphs". SIAM Journal on Computing. 31 (2): 364–374.