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Chapter 9 - Growth Functions

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21 views4 pages

Chapter 9 - Growth Functions

Uploaded by

sameerlawlis2005
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Sharad Chandra Joshi

Chapter 9 Growth Functions


The function that derives the running time of an algorithm and its memory space requirements for
a given set of input is referred as algorithm complexity.
Asymptotic notation is the most simple and easiest way of describing the running time of an
algorithm.
Asymptotic notation describes the time complexity in terms of three common measures:
▪ Best case
▪ Worst case
▪ Average case
The three most common asymptotic notations are:
▪ Big Oh Notation
▪ Omega Notation
▪ Theta Notation
Algorithm Performance:
The performance of an algorithm is obtained by totaling the number of occurrences of each
operation when running the algorithm.
The performance of algorithm is evaluated as a function of the input size ‘n” and is said to be
considered as modulo a multiplicative constant.
The following notations are commonly used in performance analysis and used to characterize the
complexity of an algorithm:
Theta Notation (Θ-notation) -Tightly Bound
Big-O Notation (O-notation) - Upper Bound
Omega Notation (Ω-notation) - Lower Bound

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Sharad Chandra Joshi

Theta Notation (Θ –Notation):

Theta notation bounds a function within constant factors.


f(n)= Θ(g(n) if there exists positive constants n0, C1 and C2 such that to the right of n0, the value
of f(n) always lies between C1g(n) and C2g(n).
Big-O Notation (O-notation)
This notation gives an upper bound for function to within constant factor.
f(n) = O(g(n) if there exists positive constants n0 and C such that to the right of n0, the value of
f(n) always lies on or below Cg(n).

Omega Notation (Ω-notation)


This notation gives the lower bound for a function to within constant factor.
F(n)= Ω g(n) if there exists positive constants n0 and C such that to the right of n0 the value of f(n)
always lie on or above Cg(n).

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Sharad Chandra Joshi

Big O Notation Examples

Big O notations are used to clarify running time function. If f(n) is O(g(n), then informally, f(n)
is within a constant factor of g(n).

Definition: Let f(n) and g(n) be two functions on positive integers. We say f(n) is O(g(n)) if there
exist two positive constants C and K such that f(n) <= C g(n) for all n >= K.

Example 1

f(n) = 10n+5 and g(n)= n

Solution:

Here, f(n) = O(g(n)) = O(n)

To show f(n) is O(g(n)), we must show constants C and k such that f(n) ≤ Cg(n) for all n ≥ k.

Or, 10n+5 ≤ Cn for all n ≥ k.

We are allowed to choose C and k to be integer, we want as long as they are positive.

They can be as big as we want but they cannot be the function of n.

Let C=15, then we need to show, 10n+5 ≤ 15n

Solving for n,

10n+5 ≤ 15n

Or, 5≤ 5n

Or, 1≤ n

So, f(n)= 10+5 <= 15.g(n) for all n ≥ 1.

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Sharad Chandra Joshi

Hence, we have shown f(n) is O(g(n)).

Example 2

f(n) = 3n2 + 4n + 1. Show f(n) is O(n2).

Solution:

We know, 4n ≤ 4n2 for all n ≥ 1.

and 1 ≤ n2 for all n ≥ 1.

3n2 + 4n + 1 ≤ 3n2 + 4n2 + n2 for all n ≥ 1.

≤ 8n2 for all n ≥ 1.

Hence, f(n) ≤ 8n2 for all n ≥ 1.

Therefore, f(n) is O(n2). [C = 8, K = 1]

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