An array has a majority element, x, if more than half of the entries of the arra

Question

An array has a majority element, x, if more than half of the entries of the array have the value x. This problem asks you to design a correct, and efficient, algorithm to compute the majority element of an array, if it has one. Input: a[0..n 1]. Output: The value, and index, of a majority element, if there is one, or a message that says there isn’t one.

(i) Provide a divide-and-conquer algorithm that runs in O(n log n) time. Explain why the algorithm works, and explain why it has this running time.

(ii) Give an algorithm that runs in O(n) expected time.

Explanation / Answer

1.
Algorithm 1 O(nlogn)

Using Balanced Binary Search Tree(AVL Tree)

Node of the Binary Search Tree (used in this approach) will be as follows.

struct tree
{
int element;
int count;
}BST;

Insert elements in BST one by one and if an element is already present then increment the count of the node. At any stage, if count of a node becomes more than n/2 then return.
The method works well for the cases where n/2+1 occurrences of the majority element is present in the starting of the array, for example {1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4}.

Time Complexity: O(nlogn)

2).

This is a two step process.
1. Get an element occurring most of the time in the array. This phase will make sure that if there is a majority element then it will return that only.
2. Check if the element obtained from above step is majority element.

1. Finding a Candidate:
The algorithm for first phase that works in O(n) is known as Moore’s Voting Algorithm. Basic idea of the algorithm is if we cancel out each occurrence of an element e with all the other elements that are different from e then e will exist till end if it is a majority element.

findCandidate(a[], size)
1. Initialize index and count of majority element
maj_index = 0, count = 1
2. Loop for i = 1 to size – 1
(a)If a[maj_index] == a[i]
count++
(b)Else
count--;
(c)If count == 0
maj_index = i;
count = 1
3. Return a[maj_index]
Above algorithm loops through each element and maintains a count of a[maj_index], If next element is same then increments the count, if next element is not same then decrements the count, and if the count reaches 0 then changes the maj_index to the current element and sets count to 1.
First Phase algorithm gives us a candidate element. In second phase we need to check if the candidate is really a majority element. Second phase is simple and can be easily done in O(n). We just need to check if count of the candidate element is greater than n/2.

Example:
A[] = 2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6
Initialize:
maj_index = 0, count = 1 –> candidate ‘2?
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Same as a[maj_index] => count = 2
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Different from a[maj_index] => count = 1
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Different from a[maj_index] => count = 0
Since count = 0, change candidate for majority element to 5 => maj_index = 3, count = 1
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Different from a[maj_index] => count = 0
Since count = 0, change candidate for majority element to 2 => maj_index = 4
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Same as a[maj_index] => count = 2
2, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6

Different from a[maj_index] => count = 1

Finally candidate for majority element is 2.

First step uses Moore’s Voting Algorithm to get a candidate for majority element.

2. Check if the element obtained in step 1 is majority

printMajority (a[], size)
1. Find the candidate for majority
2. If candidate is majority. i.e., appears more than n/2 times.
Print the candidate
3. Else
Print "NONE"

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