Question

Recall the problem of finding the number of inversions. As in the text, we are given a sequence of n numbers a1, . . . , an, which we assume are all distinct, and we define an inversion to be a pair i < j such that ai > aj.
We motivated the problem of counting inversions as a good measure of how different two orderings are. However, one might feel that this measure is too sensitive. Let’s call a pair a significant inversion if i < j and ai > 2aj. Give an O(n log n) algorithm to count the number of significant inversions between two orderings.

Answer 1

Answer:

The algorithm is very similar to the algorithm of counting inversions. The only change is that here we separate the counting of significant inversions from the merge-sort process.

Algorithm:

Let A = (a1, a2, . . . , an).

Function CountSigInv(A[1...n])

if n = 1 return 0; //base case

Let L := A[1...floor(n/2)]; // Get the first half of A

Let R := A[floor(n/2)+1...n]; // Get the second half of A

//Recurse on L. Return B, the sorted L,

//and x, the number of significant inversions in $L$

Let B, x := CountSigInv(L);

Let C, y := CountSigInv(R); //Do the counting of significant split inversions

Let i := 1;

Let j := 1;

Let z := 0;

// to count the number of significant split inversions while(i <= length(B) and j <= length(C)) if(B[i] > 2*C[j]) z += length(B)-i+1; j += 1; else i += 1;

//the normal merge-sort process i := 1; j := 1;

//the sorted A to be output Let D[1...n] be an array of length n, and every entry is initialized with 0; for k = 1 to n if B[i] < C[j] D[k] = B[i]; i += 1; else D[k] = C[j]; j += 1; return D, (x + y + z);

Runtime Analysis: At each level, both the counting of significant split inversions and the normal merge-sort process take O(n) time, because we take a linear scan in both cases. Also, at each level, we break the problem into two subproblems and the size of each subproblem is n/2. Hence, the recurrence relation is T(n) = 2T(n/2) + O(n). So in total, the time complexity is O(n log n).

Explanation: