Research and Advances

An improved algorithm for decentralized extrema-finding in circular configurations of processes

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This note presents an improvement to LeLann's algorithm for finding the largest (or smallest) of a set of uniquely numbered processes arranged in a circle, in which no central controller exists and the number of processes is not known a priori. This decentralized algorithm uses a technique of selective message extinction in order to achieve an average number of message passes of order (n log n) rather than O(n2).

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