Analysis
A simple amortized analysis of static splay trees can be carried out using the potential method. Suppose that size(r) is the number of nodes in the subtree rooted at r (including r) and rank(r) = log2(size(r)). Then the potential function P(t) for a splay tree t is the sum of the ranks of all the nodes in the tree. This will tend to be high for poorly balanced trees, and low for well-balanced trees. We can bound the amortized cost of any zig-zig or zig-zag operation by:
- amortized cost = cost + P(tf) - P(ti) ≤ 3(rankf(x) - ranki(x)),
where x is the node being moved towards the root, and the subscripts "f" and "i" indicate after and before the operation, respectively. When summed over the entire splay operation, this telescopes to 3(rank(root)) which is O(log n). Since there's at most one zig operation, this only adds a constant.
Read more about this topic: Splay Tree
Famous quotes containing the word analysis:
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)