Abstract

The purpose of this paper is a study of computation that can be done locally in a distributed network, where “locally” means within time (or distance) independent of the size of the network. Locally checkable labeling (LCL) problems are considered, where the legality of a labeling can be checked locally (e.g., coloring). The results include the following: • There are nontrivial LCL problems that have local algorithms. • There is a variant of the dining philosophers problem that can be solved locally. • Randomization cannot make an LCL problem local; i.e., if a problem has a local randomized algorithm then it has a local deterministic algorithm. • It is undecidable, in general, whether a given LCL has a local algorithm. • However, it is decidable whether a given LCL has an algorithm that operates in a given time t. • Any LCL problem that has a local algorithm has one that is order-invariant (the algorithm depends only on the order of the processor IDs).

MSC codes

  1. 68M10
  2. 68Q20
  3. 68Q22
  4. 68R05
  5. 68R10

Keywords

  1. distributed computation
  2. local computation
  3. graph labeling problem
  4. resource allocation
  5. dining philosophers problem
  6. randomized algorithms

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

cover image SIAM Journal on Computing
SIAM Journal on Computing
Pages: 1259 - 1277
ISSN (online): 1095-7111

History

Submitted: 27 August 1993
Accepted: 28 June 1994
Published online: 13 July 2006

MSC codes

  1. 68M10
  2. 68Q20
  3. 68Q22
  4. 68R05
  5. 68R10

Keywords

  1. distributed computation
  2. local computation
  3. graph labeling problem
  4. resource allocation
  5. dining philosophers problem
  6. randomized algorithms

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