Abstract. We introduce a framework for reducing the number of element comparisons performed in priority-queue operations. In particular, we give a priority queue which guarantees the worst-case cost of O(1) per minimum finding and insertion, and the worst-case cost of O(log n) with at most log n + O(1) element comparisons per minimum deletion and deletion, improving the bound of 2log n + O(1) on the number of element comparisons known for binomial queues. Here, n denotes the number of elements stored in the data structure prior to the operation in question, and log n equals max {1,log 2 n}. We also give a priority queue that provides, in addition to the above-mentioned methods, the priority-decrease (or decrease-key) method. This priority queue achieves the worst-case cost of O(1) per minimum finding, insertion, and priority decrease; and the worst-case cost of O(log n) with at most log n + O(log log n) element comparisons per minimum deletion and deletion. CR Classification. E.1 [Data Structures]: Lists, stacks, and queues; E.2 [Data

Abstract. This paper considers integer sorting on a RAM. We show that adaptive sorting of a sequence with qn inversions is asymptotically equivalent to multisorting groups of at most q keys, and a total of n keys. Using the recent O(n √ log log n) expected time sorting of Han and Thorup on each set, we immediately get an adaptive expected sorting time of O(n √ log log q). Interestingly, for any positive constant ε, we show that multisorting and adaptive inversion sorting can be performed in (log n)1−ε linear time if q ≤ 2. We also show how to asymptotically improve the running time of any traditional sorting algorithm on a class of inputs much broader than those with few inversions. 1