Abstract
We show that the k th smallest element in a large heap is at expected depth ≤log k. Simulation results indicate that this bound is tight, and that the variance of the depth is no more than 0.8, independent of k.
This leads to a simple algorithm for actually finding the k th smallest element that appears to run in O(k) expected time, which would improve the previous best-known bound of O(klog k). We prove an Ω(klog k) lower bound for worst case running time of any algorithm to solve this problem.
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© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Weiss, M.A., Navlakha, J.K. (1989). The distribution of keys in a binary heap. In: Dehne, F., Sack, J.R., Santoro, N. (eds) Algorithms and Data Structures. WADS 1989. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 382. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51542-9_42
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51542-9_42
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