The number of nodes of a network, called its size, is one of the most important network parameters. A radio network is a collection of stations, called nodes, with wireless transmission and receiving capabilities. It is modeled as a simple connected undirected graph whose nodes communicate in synchronous rounds. In each round, a node can either transmit a message to all its neighbors, or stay silent and listen. At the receiving end, a node @math hears a message from a neighbor @math in a given round, if @math listens in this round, and if @math is its only neighbor that transmits in this round. If @math listens in a round, and two or more neighbors of @math transmit in this round, a collision occurs at @math . Two scenarios are considered in the literature: if nodes can distinguish collision from silence (the latter occurs when no neighbor transmits), we say that the network has the collision detection capability, otherwise there is no collision detection. We consider the task of size discovery: finding the size of an unknown radio network with collision detection. All nodes have to output the size of the network, using a deterministic algorithm. Nodes have labels which are (not necessarily distinct) binary strings. The length of a labeling scheme is the largest length of a label. Our main result states that the minimum length of a labeling scheme permitting size discovery in the class of networks of maximum degree Delta is Theta( Delta).
In @cite_0 , the authors compared the minimum size of advice required to solve two information dissemination problems, using a linear number of messages. In @cite_17 , given a distributed representation of a solution for a problem, the authors investigated the number of bits of communication needed to verify the legality of the represented solution. In @cite_8 , the authors established the size of advice needed to break competitive ratio 2 of an exploration algorithm in trees. In @cite_9 , it was shown that advice of constant size permits to carry out the distributed construction of a minimum spanning tree in logarithmic time. In @cite_16 , short labeling schemes were constructed with the aim to answer queries about the distance between any pair of nodes. In @cite_10 , the advice paradigm was used for online problems. In the case of @cite_4 , the issue was not efficiency but feasibility: it was shown that @math is the minimum size of advice required to perform monotone connected graph clearing.
@cite_4 @cite_8 @cite_9 @cite_0 @cite_16 @cite_10 @cite_17
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[L. Blin, P. Fraigniaud, N. Nisse, S. Vial, Distributing chasing of network intruders, in: 13th Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO, in: LNCS, vol. 4056, Springer-Verlag, 2006, pp. 70-84] introduced a new measure of difficulty for a distributed task in a network. The smallest number of bits of advice of a distributed problem is the smallest number of bits of information that has to be available to nodes in order to accomplish the task efficiently. Our paper deals with the number of bits of advice required to perform efficiently the graph searching problem in a distributed setting. In this variant of the problem, all searchers are initially placed at a particular node of the network. The aim of the team of searchers is to clear a contaminated graph in a monotone connected way, i.e., the cleared part of the graph is permanently connected, and never decreases while the search strategy is executed. Moreover, the clearing of the graph must be performed using the optimal number of searchers, i.e. the minimum number of searchers sufficient to clear the graph in a monotone connected way in a centralized setting. We show that the minimum number of bits of advice permitting the monotone connected and optimal clearing of a network in a distributed setting is @Q(nlogn), where n is the number of nodes of the network. More precisely, we first provide a labelling of the vertices of any graph G, using a total of O(nlogn) bits, and a protocol using this labelling that enables the optimal number of searchers to clear G in a monotone connected distributed way. Then, we show that this number of bits of advice is optimal: any distributed protocol requires @W(nlogn) bits of advice to clear a network in a monotone connected way, using an optimal number of searchers. We study the amount of knowledge about the network that is required in order to efficiently solve a task concerning this network. The impact of available information on the efficiency of solving network problems, such as communication or exploration, has been investigated before but assumptions concerned availability of particular items of information about the network, such as the size, the diameter, or a map of the network. In contrast, our approach is quantitative: we investigate the minimum number of bits of information (bits of advice) that has to be given to an algorithm in order to perform a task with given efficiency. We illustrate this quantitative approach to available knowledge by the task of tree exploration. A mobile entity (robot) has to traverse all edges of an unknown tree, using as few edge traversals as possible. The quality of an exploration algorithm A is measured by its competitive ratio, i.e., by comparing its cost (number of edge traversals) to the length of the shortest path containing all edges of the tree. Depth-First-Search has competitive ratio 2 and, in the absence of any information about the tree, no algorithm can beat this value. We determine the minimum number of bits of advice that has to be given to an exploration algorithm in order to achieve competitive ratio strictly smaller than 2. Our main result establishes an exact threshold number of bits of advice that turns out to be roughly loglogD, where D is the diameter of the tree. More precisely, for any constant c, we construct an exploration algorithm with competitive ratio smaller than 2, using at most loglogD-c bits of advice, and we show that every algorithm using loglogD-g(D) bits of advice, for any function g unbounded from above, has competitive ratio at least 2. We use the recently introduced advising scheme framework for measuring the difficulty of locally distributively computing a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST). An (m,t)-advising scheme for a distributed problem P is a way, for every possible input I of P, to provide an "advice" (i.e., a bit string) about I to each node so that: (1) the maximum size of the advices is at most m bits, and (2) the problem P can be solved distributively in at most t rounds using the advices as inputs. In case of MST, the output returned by each node of a weighted graph G is the edge leading to its parent in some rooted MST T of G. Clearly, there is a trivial (log n,0)-advising scheme for MST (each node is given the local port number of the edge leading to the root of some MST T), and it is known that any (0,t)-advising scheme satisfies t ≥ Ω (√n). Our main result is the construction of an (O(1),O(log n))-advising scheme for MST. That is, by only giving a constant number of bits of advice to each node, one can decrease exponentially the distributed computation time of MST in arbitrary graph, compared to algorithms dealing with the problem in absence of any a priori information. We also consider the average size of the advices. On the one hand, we show that any (m,0)-advising scheme for MST gives advices of average size Ω(log n). On the other hand we design an (m,1)-advising scheme for MST with advices of constant average size, that is one round is enough to decrease the average size of the advices from log(n) to constant. We study the amount of knowledge about a communication network that must be given to its nodes in order to efficiently disseminate information. Our approach is quantitative: we investigate the minimum total number of bits of information (minimum size of advice) that has to be available to nodes, regardless of the type of information provided. We compare the size of advice needed to perform broadcast and wakeup (the latter is a broadcast in which nodes can transmit only after getting the source information), both using a linear number of messages (which is optimal). We show that the minimum size of advice permitting the wakeup with a linear number of messages in an n-node network, is @Q(nlogn), while the broadcast with a linear number of messages can be achieved with advice of size O(n). We also show that the latter size of advice is almost optimal: no advice of size o(n) can permit to broadcast with a linear number of messages. Thus an efficient wakeup requires strictly more information about the network than an efficient broadcast. We study deterministic gossiping in ad hoc radio networks with large node labels. The labels (identifiers) of the nodes come from a domain of size N which may be much larger than the size n of the network (the number of nodes). Most of the work on deterministic communication has been done for the model with small labels which assumes N = O(n). A notable exception is Peleg's paper, where the problem of deterministic communication in ad hoc radio networks with large labels is raised and a deterministic broadcasting algorithm is proposed, which runs in O(n2log n) time for N polynomially large in n. The O(nlog2n)-time deterministic broadcasting algorithm for networks with small labels given by implies deterministic O(n log N log n)-time broadcasting and O(n2log2N log n)-time gossiping in networks with large labels. We propose two new deterministic gossiping algorithms for ad hoc radio networks with large labels, which are the first such algorithms with subquadratic time for polynomially large N. More specifically, we propose: a deterministic O(n3 2log2N log n)-time gossiping algorithm for directed networks; and a deterministic O(n log2N log2n)-time gossiping algorithm for undirected networks. We consider a model for online computation in which the online algorithm receives, together with each request, some information regarding the future, referred to as advice. The advice is a function, defined by the online algorithm, of the whole request sequence. The advice provided to the online algorithm may allow an improvement in its performance, compared to the classical model of complete lack of information regarding the future. We are interested in the impact of such advice on the competitive ratio, and in particular, in the relation between the size b of the advice, measured in terms of bits of information per request, and the (improved) competitive ratio. Since b=0 corresponds to the classical online model, and b=@?log|A|@?, where A is the algorithm's action space, corresponds to the optimal (offline) one, our model spans a spectrum of settings ranging from classical online algorithms to offline ones. In this paper we propose the above model and illustrate its applicability by considering two of the most extensively studied online problems, namely, metrical task systems (MTS) and the k-server problem. For MTS we establish tight (up to constant factors) upper and lower bounds on the competitive ratio of deterministic and randomized online algorithms with advice for any choice of 1@?b@?@Q(logn), where n is the number of states in the system: we prove that any randomized online algorithm for MTS has competitive ratio @W(log(n) b) and we present a deterministic online algorithm for MTS with competitive ratio O(log(n) b). For the k-server problem we construct a deterministic online algorithm for general metric spaces with competitive ratio k^O^(^1^ ^b^) for any choice of @Q(1)@?b@?logk. This paper addresses the problem of locally verifying global properties. Several natural questions are studied, such as “how expensive is local verification?” and more specifically, “how expensive is local verification compared to computation?” A suitable model is introduced in which these questions are studied in terms of the number of bits a vertex needs to communicate. The model includes the definition of a proof labeling scheme (a pair of algorithms- one to assign the labels, and one to use them to verify that the global property holds). In addition, approaches are presented for the efficient construction of schemes, and upper and lower bounds are established on the bit complexity of schemes for multiple basic problems. The paper also studies the role and cost of unique identities in terms of impossibility and complexity, in the context of proof labeling schemes. Previous studies on related questions deal with distributed algorithms that simultaneously compute a configuration and verify that this configuration has a certain desired property. It turns out that this combined approach enables the verification to be less costly sometimes, since the configuration is typically generated so as to be easily verifiable. In contrast, our approach separates the configuration design from the verification. That is, it first generates the desired configuration without bothering with the need to verify it, and then handles the task of constructing a suitable verification scheme. Our approach thus allows for a more modular design of algorithms, and has the potential to aid in verifying properties even when the original design of the structures for maintaining them was done without verification in mind.