Elsevier

Journal of Algorithms

Volume 12, Issue 4, December 1991, Pages 533-555
Journal of Algorithms

Self-organizing lists and independent references: A statistical synergy

https://doi.org/10.1016/0196-6774(91)90032-TGet rights and content

Abstract

Let R1,…, Rn be a linear list of n elements. We assume the independent reference model, with a fixed but unknown access probability vector. We survey briefly the problem of reorganizing the list dynamically, on the basis of accrued references, with the objective of minimizing the expected access cost. The counter scheme (CS) is known to be asymptotically optimal for this purpose. The paper explores the CS, with the aim of reducing its storage requirements. We start with a detailed exposition of its cost function and then point out that it interacts with the access model to produce some remarkable synergistic effects. These make it possible to use very effective “truncated versions” of the CS, which have very modest space requirements. The versions we consider are: (i) the “limited-counters scheme”, which bounds each of the frequency counters to a maximal value c; (ii) the original CS with a bound on the number of references during which the scheme is active. The bound is chosen so as to achieve a desired level of performance compared with the optimal policy.

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Currently with the Department of Computer Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-3475.

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