We present a simple dictionary with worst case constant lookup time, equaling the theoretical performance of the classic dynamic perfect hashing scheme of Dietzfelbinger et al. (Dynamic perfect hashing: Upper and lower bounds. SIAM J. Comput., 23(4):738–761, 1994). The space usage is similar to that of binary search trees, i.e., three words per key on average. Besides being conceptually much simpler than previous dynamic dictionaries with worst case constant lookup time, our data structure is interesting in that it does not use perfect hashing, but rather a variant of open addressing where keys can be moved back in their probe sequences. An implementation inspired by our algorithm, but using weaker hash functions, is found to be quite practical. It is competitive with the best known dictionaries having an average case (but no nontrivial worst case) guarantee. Key Words: data structures, dictionaries, information retrieval, searching, hashing, experiments * Partially supported by the Future and Emerging Technologies programme of the EU

In this paper we survey some results concerning balls-intobins -games and the power of two choices. We present a uni ed and rather elementary analysis for models in the parallel as well as in the sequential setting which is based on witness trees.