LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.25.pdf
- Filesize: 0.6 MB
- 14 pages
We revisit one of the classic problems in the data stream literature, namely, that of estimating the frequency moments F_p for 0 < p < 2 of an underlying n-dimensional vector presented as a sequence of additive updates in a stream. It is well-known that using p-stable distributions one can approximate any of these moments up to a multiplicative (1+epsilon)-factor using O(epsilon^{-2} log n) bits of space, and this space bound is optimal up to a constant factor in the turnstile streaming model. We show that surprisingly, if one instead considers the popular random-order model of insertion-only streams, in which the updates to the underlying vector arrive in a random order, then one can beat this space bound and achieve O~(epsilon^{-2} + log n) bits of space, where the O~ hides poly(log(1/epsilon) + log log n) factors. If epsilon^{-2} ~~ log n, this represents a roughly quadratic improvement in the space achievable in turnstile streams. Our algorithm is in fact deterministic, and we show our space bound is optimal up to poly(log(1/epsilon) + log log n) factors for deterministic algorithms in the random order model. We also obtain a similar improvement in space for p = 2 whenever F_2 >~ log n * F_1.
Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing