Finger Indexed Sets: New Approaches

Abstract: In the particular case we have insertions/deletions at the tail of a given set S of $n$ one-dimensional elements, we present a simpler and more concrete algorithm than that presented in [Anderson, 2007] achieving the same (but also amortized) upper bound of $O(\sqrt{logd/loglogd})$ for finger searching queries, where $d$ is the number of sorted keys between the finger element and the target element we are looking for. Furthermore, in general case we have insertions/deletions anywhere we present a new randomized algorithm achieving the same expected time bounds. Even the new solutions achieve the optimal bounds in amortized or expected case, the advantage of simplicity is of great importance due to practical merits we gain.