Tight Streaming Lower Bounds for Deterministic Approximate Counting

Fuente: arXiv
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Autore principale: Wang, Yichuan
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Wang, Yichuan
author_facet Wang, Yichuan
contents We study the streaming complexity of $k$-counter approximate counting. In the $k$-counter approximate counting problem, we are given an input string in $[k]^n$, and we are required to approximate the number of each $j$'s ($j\in[k]$) in the string. Typically we require an additive error $\leq\frac{n}{3(k-1)}$ for each $j\in[k]$ respectively, and we are mostly interested in the regime $n\gg k$. We prove a lower bound result that the deterministic and worst-case $k$-counter approximate counting problem requires $Ω(k\log(n/k))$ bits of space in the streaming model, while no non-trivial lower bounds were known before. In contrast, trivially counting the number of each $j\in[k]$ uses $O(k\log n)$ bits of space. Our main proof technique is analyzing a novel potential function. Our lower bound for $k$-counter approximate counting also implies the optimality of some other streaming algorithms. For example, we show that the celebrated Misra-Gries algorithm for heavy hitters [MG82] has achieved optimal space usage.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_12149
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tight Streaming Lower Bounds for Deterministic Approximate Counting
Wang, Yichuan
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
We study the streaming complexity of $k$-counter approximate counting. In the $k$-counter approximate counting problem, we are given an input string in $[k]^n$, and we are required to approximate the number of each $j$'s ($j\in[k]$) in the string. Typically we require an additive error $\leq\frac{n}{3(k-1)}$ for each $j\in[k]$ respectively, and we are mostly interested in the regime $n\gg k$. We prove a lower bound result that the deterministic and worst-case $k$-counter approximate counting problem requires $Ω(k\log(n/k))$ bits of space in the streaming model, while no non-trivial lower bounds were known before. In contrast, trivially counting the number of each $j\in[k]$ uses $O(k\log n)$ bits of space. Our main proof technique is analyzing a novel potential function. Our lower bound for $k$-counter approximate counting also implies the optimality of some other streaming algorithms. For example, we show that the celebrated Misra-Gries algorithm for heavy hitters [MG82] has achieved optimal space usage.
title Tight Streaming Lower Bounds for Deterministic Approximate Counting
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12149