English
Related papers

Related papers: Approximate Majority With Catalytic Inputs

200 papers

We introduce a new coordination problem in distributed computing that we call the population stability problem. A system of agents each with limited memory and communication, as well as the ability to replicate and self-destruct, is…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-03-09 Shafi Goldwasser , Rafail Ostrovsky , Alessandra Scafuro , Adam Sealfon

We study here the problem of determining the majority type in an arbitrary connected network, each vertex of which has initially two possible types. The vertices may have a few additional possible states and can interact in pairs only if…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2014-05-01 George B. Mertzios , Sotiris E. Nikoletseas , Christoforos L. Raptopoulos , Paul G. Spirakis

In this work, we initiate the study of \emph{smoothed analysis} of population protocols. We consider a population protocol model where an adaptive adversary dictates the interactions between agents, but with probability $p$ every such…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-05-27 Gregory Schwartzman , Yuichi Sudo

Population protocols are a fundamental model in distributed computing, where many nodes with bounded memory and computational power have random pairwise interactions over time. This model has been studied in a rich body of literature aiming…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-01-05 Simina Branzei , Yuval Peres

Population protocols are a distributed computing model appropriate for describing massive numbers of agents with limited computational power. A population protocol "has an initial leader" if every valid initial configuration contains a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-11-06 Amanda Belleville , David Doty , David Soloveichik

Population protocols have been introduced as a model of sensor networks consisting of very limited mobile agents with no control over their own movement. A population protocol corresponds to a collection of anonymous agents, modeled by…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2009-07-20 Olivier Bournez , Philippe Chassaing , Johanne Cohen , Lucas Gerin , Xavier Koegler

Population protocols have been introduced by Angluin et al. as a model of networks consisting of very limited mobile agents that interact in pairs but with no control over their own movement. A collection of anonymous agents, modeled by…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2011-09-22 Olivier Bournez , Jérémie Chalopin , Johanne Cohen , Xavier Koegler , Mikael Rabie

Population protocols have been introduced by Angluin et al. as a model in which n passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents stably compute a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The model has been…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2019-02-21 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

Population protocols are a model of computation in which an arbitrary number of indistinguishable finite-state agents interact in pairs. The goal of the agents is to decide by stable consensus whether their initial global configuration…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2022-07-13 Philipp Czerner , Javier Esparza , Jérôme Leroux

In this paper we study population protocols governed by the {\em random scheduler}, which uniformly at random selects pairwise interactions between $n$ agents. The main result of this paper is the first time and space optimal {\em exact…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

We consider the model of population protocols, which can be viewed as a sequence of random pairwise interactions of $n$ agents (nodes). We show population protocols for two problems: the leader election and the exact majority voting. The…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-05-04 Andreas Bilke , Colin Cooper , Robert Elsaesser , Tomasz Radzik

This paper revisits a fundamental distributed computing problem in the population protocol model. Provided $n$ agents each starting with an input color in $[k]$, the relative majority problem asks to find the predominant color. In the…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-05-06 Tom-Lukas Breitkopf , Julien Dallot , Antoine El-Hayek , Stefan Schmid

We consider the model of population protocols introduced by Angluin et al., in which anonymous finite-state agents stably compute a predicate of the multiset of their inputs via two-way interactions in the all-pairs family of communication…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Dana Angluin , James Aspnes , David Eisenstat , Eric Ruppert

Population protocols [Angluin et al., PODC, 2004] are a model of distributed computation in which indistinguishable, finite-state agents interact in pairs to decide if their initial configuration, i.e., the initial number of agents in each…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2021-02-10 Javier Esparza , Stefan Jaax , Mikhail Raskin , Chana Weil-Kennedy

Population protocols are a model of distributed computation intended for the study of networks of independent computing agents with dynamic communication structure. Each agent has a finite number of states, and communication opportunities…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-12-28 Mikhail Raskin

For nearly two decades, population protocols have been extensively studied, yielding efficient solutions for central problems in distributed computing, including leader election, and majority computation, a predicate type in Presburger…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Leszek Gąsieniec , Tytus Grodzicki , Tomasz Jurdziński , Jakub Kowalski , Grzegorz Stachowiak

The population protocol model was introduced by Angluin \emph{et al.} as a model of passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents. This model computes a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The original…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-02-12 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

We study the problems of leader election and population size counting for population protocols: networks of finite-state anonymous agents that interact randomly under a uniform random scheduler. We show a protocol for leader election that…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-06-08 Othon Michail , Paul G. Spirakis , Michail Theofilatos

Population protocols are a popular model of distributed computing, in which randomly-interacting agents with little computational power cooperate to jointly perform computational tasks. Inspired by developments in molecular computation, and…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-04-18 Dan Alistarh , James Aspnes , David Eisenstat , Rati Gelashvili , Ronald L. Rivest

The population protocol model describes a network of anonymous agents that interact asynchronously in pairs chosen at random. Each agent starts in the same initial state $s$. We introduce the *dynamic size counting* problem: approximately…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2022-02-28 David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari