Preprocessing Ambiguous Imprecise Points
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Let R = {R_1, R_2, ..., R_n} be a set of regions and let X = {x_1, x_2, ..., x_n} be an (unknown) point set with x_i ∈ R_i. Region R_i represents the uncertainty region of x_i. We consider the following question: how fast can we establish order if we are allowed to preprocess the regions in R? The preprocessing model of uncertainty uses two consecutive phases: a preprocessing phase which has access only to R followed by a reconstruction phase during which a desired structure on X is computed. Recent results in this model parametrize the reconstruction time by the ply of R, which is the maximum overlap between the regions in R. We introduce the ambiguity A(R) as a more fine-grained measure of the degree of overlap in R. We show how to preprocess a set of d-dimensional disks in O(n n) time such that we can sort X (if d=1) and reconstruct a quadtree on X (if d≥ 1 but constant) in O(A(R)) time. If A(R) is sub-linear, then reporting the result dominates the running time of the reconstruction phase. However, we can still return a suitable data structure representing the result in O(A(R)) time. In one dimension, R is a set of intervals and the ambiguity is linked to interval entropy, which in turn relates to the well-studied problem of sorting under partial information. The number of comparisons necessary to find the linear order underlying a poset P is lower-bounded by the graph entropy of P. We show that if P is an interval order, then the ambiguity provides a constant-factor approximation of the graph entropy. This gives a lower bound of Ω(A(R)) in all dimensions for the reconstruction phase (sorting or any proximity structure), independent of any preprocessing; hence our result is tight.
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