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A Polylogarithmic Gossip Algorithm for Plurality Consensus

Published: 25 July 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Consider n anonymous nodes each initially supporting an opinion in {1, 2, …, k} and suppose that they should all learn the opinion with the largest support. Per round, each node contacts a random other node and exchanges B bits with it, where typically B is at most O(log n).
This basic distributed computing problem is called the plurality consensus problem (in the gossip model) and it has received extensive attention. An efficient plurality protocol is one that converges to the plurality consensus as fast as possible, and the standard assumption is that each node has memory at most polylogarithmic in n. The best known time bound is due to Becchetti et al. [SODA'15], reaching plurality consensus in O(k log n) rounds using log(k+1) bits of local memory, under some mild assumptions. As stated by Becchetti et al., achieving a poly-logarithmic time complexity remained an open question.
Resolving this question, we present an algorithm that with high probability reaches plurality consensus in O(log k log n) rounds, while having message and memory size of log k + O (1) bits. This even holds under considerably more relaxed assumptions regarding the initial bias (towards plurality) compared to those of prior work. The algorithm is based on a very simple and arguably natural mechanism.

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cover image ACM Conferences
PODC '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
July 2016
508 pages
ISBN:9781450339643
DOI:10.1145/2933057
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 25 July 2016

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Author Tags

  1. consensus
  2. gossip algorithms
  3. network dynamics

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PODC '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 40 of 149 submissions, 27%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 740 of 2,477 submissions, 30%

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  • (2023)Distributed Averaging in Opinion DynamicsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3583668.3594593(211-221)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Fast Convergence of k-Opinion Undecided State Dynamics in the Population Protocol ModelProceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3583668.3594589(13-23)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
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  • (2022)Phase transition of a nonlinear opinion dynamics with noisy interactionsSwarm Intelligence10.1007/s11721-022-00217-w16:4(261-304)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2022
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  • (2020)Positive Aging Admits Fast Asynchronous Plurality ConsensusProceedings of the 39th Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3382734.3406506(385-394)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2020
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